Transgender Dysphoria Blues
by Professor Marmalade
Summary: In which our favorite child of Poseidon discovers herself. (A trans!Percy coming-out story set after Heroes of Olympus. Rated T for gender dysphoria and language. Title of the story belongs to Against Me! and their album "Transgender Dysphoria Blues.")
1. I: Transgender Dysphoria Blues

**AN: Hey y'all!**

**I haven't written fanfiction in nearly four years! Weird. My time has been consumed with my original writing and my ongoing gender transition, but I'm back to write this trans story I've been thinking about for a while. Bear with me as I shake the rust off!**

**As the description says, this is a trans!Percy coming out story. ****I've decided to ignore Trials of Apollo in the canon of this fic, so this story is essentially post-Heroes of Olympus with one crucial difference: _Leo never returned after dying and never sent his holographic scroll_. It's dark, I know, but it helps explain t!Percy's detachment and general depression at the beginning of the narrative, which, in tandem with her gender dysphoria, was a compelling place for me to start.**

**Lastly: since I'm feeling _extra _emo on account of my hormones, I'm titling the fic after Against Me!'s album _Transgender Dysphoria Blues._ While this story is rated T for language, gender dysphoria, and depression, that album is _definitely _M-rated. It can be rough to listen to at times. Listen if you want, but don't feel obligated or anything. **

**That author's note was too long! Anyway, enjoy chapter I of VII.**

**XOX**

* * *

**_I: Transgender Dysphoria Blues_**

Riptide's gold ink shimmers up at me from the page while I (yet again) go over what I have scribbled down.

_Persephone_. The first name I'd come up with, all the way back in March. It had made sense for me back then, but now I wanted to be as far away from the name on my birth certificate as possible. Picking it would feel too obvious. Plus, I had some unpleasant history with, you know, Persephone herself, so she probably wouldn't take kindly to me using her name. I grit my teeth.

_Penelope_. I really like this one, but, again, too obvious to pick a _P _name. Feels cliché. Plus, _Penny_. Not the name I want to be stuck with.

_Callista. _I frown. Spending that night on the Ancient Greek name generator was a bad idea. Maybe trying so hard for a Greek name, hoping that people would still take me seriously as a demigod if I ever said anything about these feelings I've been having, is a mistake?

_Calliope._ Why did I even put that one on there? Ridiculous. Like I'm gonna go up to someone and say, "Hey, my name's _Calliope_, you know, like that weird organ you hear at the circus? The one that makes clown music?"

I want to scream. _Maybe you're wrong_, says that one part of my head that's _always _telling me this is a mistake. _You're gonna embarrass yourself. You're huge, you're built like an actual Greek God. Everyone thinks you're the uber-manly Son of Poseidon because that's what you ARE._

Six more names are spelled out in golden ink, but I can't bring myself to read them. The letters swim around, doing laps, taunting me. I'm about to crumple up the page and toss it away when my door creaks open.

"Hey, Percy?" comes the voice of Annabeth. I flinch at the sound of my name. She doesn't know a thing about what's going on, so she obviously doesn't know that she's just hurt me.

You might be asking: _When you say "hurt," what do you mean_? And I'm not sure if I have an answer for you, beyond: it makes me feel like I can't breathe, which, given my godly parentage, is something I'm not used to.

"We agreed to meet them in half-an-hour, so we should probably leave now. Dad says you can drive the car."

I force a smile for her. "Cool! I'll, uh . . . Just a second."

"Whatcha writing?"

"Oh! Just, you know. Taking notes."

She squints at me. "Since when do you take notes, Seaweed Brain?"

"Just a shopping list, for, you know, when I get back. Mom has me do the shopping now that she's so preoccupied with Estelle, you know."

It's a total lie, and I expect her to push me further on it. She doesn't. "Aww. What a good big brother you are!"

_Flinch._ "You know how it!" I try and give her a big, cheesy smile, try and act like a goofball again. She still expects it of me, but it's gotten harder everything started happening in January. I stealthily grab the piece of paper and fold it into my pocket. "Anyway, lemme just throw a non-stained shirt on, then we'll go."

* * *

We planned on meeting the Seven at this Piper-approved vegan joint in the Mission, but her boyfriend called an audible at the last minute: we were _actually _going to picnic in Marin, up at this little park that overlooked San Francisco Bay. Piper and Jason would handle the snacks. I'm not thrilled about it, but last I heard, the two of them were bickering, so I guess it's progress that we're having our monthly reunion at all.

It's weird. We still called our group _the Seven_. Even for the first few months after Gaia was defeated, when we grieving Leo _hard _(not that we aren't_ still_ grieving), we still thoughtlessly called ourselves _the Seven. _Even when Nico (and sometimes Will, as they were usually a package deal), Reyna, or even Gleeson would show up: _the Seven_.

It's been . . . Hades, it's been, like, sixteen months since everything went down. I finished out my last year of high school, pinned my degree up on my wall, and it somehow didn't occur to me that I never applied to college in New Rome like Annabeth wanted me to. My motivation was gone, everything burned up. Here we are in November, and she's IMing me from California about her 100-levels while I live in my Mom's apartment and watch the baby.

It's killing her, seeing me like this. _The child of Poseidon became a burnout. What a joke._

Anyway: it's before rush hour, so the Golden Gate Bridge isn't the _worst _it can possibly be, but Annabeth is getting all frustrated. "It's like these people learned how to drive from the Gray Sisters!"

"The who?"

She gives me an incredulous look. "The three sisters who only have one eye and one tooth between them? We rode in their taxi cab?"

_Now _I remember. "Oh, yeah. Right.

She studies me, which makes me redden. "You are so unbelievably _quiet _lately," she says. "Are you _sure _everything is fine?"

I put on a dumb smile. "Always!"

"Percy, I love you to death, but if something's going on and you're not telling me—"

"I'm _fine," _I assure her. "Just, you know. Kinda all over the place right now. ADHD, probably. With how often you call me Seaweed Brain, I would _think _you'd know what to expect."

She presses her lips in a line. Today, she braided her blonde hair over her shoulder, paired it with a flannel shirt. _Flannel_. I drum my fingers on the steering wheel. I might like to get into flannel. Might like to grow out my hair more. "So why are you all over the place right now?" she asks softly.

It's my turn to press my lips into a line and be cryptic. "I don't really have the words."

"Are you dealing with . . . ?" A word we both know well hangs between us.

I shake my head, and I really mean that. The PTSD hasn't been bad for a while. Instead, it's something she can't relate to, not even if she tried. "I just want to hang out with my friends. That's it."

Doesn't take long for us to get where we need to go. I pull up to a nice shady spot under a few trees at the edge of a bluff; it's sunny, but almost cold, which kinda makes the shade redundant, but whatever. Under the tree's shade sit Piper, Jason, Hazel, Frank, and Nico. No Will, which is interesting. I make a mental note to ask Nico what's up with that.

I breathe deeply, hoping the salty air from the bay would calm my nerves. It doesn't, which worries me. Water's felt distant to me lately, which seems like a bad omen.

"There you two are!" Piper rises to her feet and rushes to smother Annabeth in a hug, leaving me standing there awkwardly. I offer a weird wave to everyone. I love these people more than most anyone else, but it feels like there's a wall between me and them, tall and solid. _They won't understand. They'll think you're a freak. _I grind my teeth and put on a big smile. I try to remember the person I was and I try to act like I'm him again.

Piper smiles at me, says she hopes I've been treating Annabeth well. Jason gives me a firm handshake, then says, "bro hug," and gathers me a too-tight embrace. I want to barf, but not because of Jason, who I seriously do miss. He gives me a big smile. "I wish you came around more, buddy!"

Everyone's in California but me these days, with the sole exception of Nico. I'm basically alone in New York, except family, obviously, and the occasional visitor from Camp Half-Blood. We used to alternate our monthly reunions between the two coasts, but now that was pretty much pointless. "Getting across the country isn't easy," I point out. I shadow-traveled here with the help of Mrs. O'Leary, but I try and avoid doing it all the time. It exhausts her, and the last thing I want to do is hurt her.

"We should get you out here! They'd take you in New Rome, even if you're not . . ." _Even if you're n__ot doing anything_, is what he means to say.

Annabeth and I had considered the idea, but I'd been dragging my feet. Now, we've been living on opposite coasts for three months. It hasn't been easy. I still love her, but it hurts me to be around her knowing what would happen if she found out about me. And the thought of living with the Roman demigods, where they know me as _Percy Jackson, Hero of Olympus, _makes me want to barf almost as bad as _bro hug_ does.

Frank and Hazel give me big hugs as well. Frank's nearly as athletic as me now—thinking about my body makes me want to melt from the inside out, so I'm going to stop doing that—and seems to be doing better than ever. Hazel's great, but we've barely even spoken since the war against Gaea ended. As awful as it sounds, sometimes, I miss the quest to Alaska where we bonded, where I called them _family_. I miss being close to people.

Once everyone else is chatting and reminiscing, I sit down next to Nico. He looks at me with about as much warmth as he can muster, which makes me feel somewhat okay for a second. "Jackson," he greets me, solemnly.

"Di Angelo." Nico's the kinda guy who's comfortable enough in complete silence, so I realize I need to keep talking. "No Will? I thought you wouldn't be caught dead here without someone to keep you company."

"Will's . . . busy." I can tell that's all he's gonna say about the matter, so I don't push him. "But I get along with Jason well enough."

"That's good!"

"Yep." Again, he stonewalls me.

I tap my foot against the ground. "Hey, uh. I never really asked you. When you came out, how was . . ." I struggle for the right words. "How were people? At Camp Half-Blood, or I guess at Camp Jupiter and New Rome."

Nico squints at me and spins the silver ring he wears around his finger. "If you feel guilty about . . . you know, that I used to be into you, you really shouldn't."

"No!" I say quickly. I _do _feel guilty about that from time to time, but that wasn't why I was asking him this. "I'm just curious, like. Just as a friend. I never really asked you."

He's still regarding me suspiciously, like I have an ulterior motive (which, Styx, I guess I do). "Camp Half-Blood was fine. Like, practically no reaction at all. The Romans were more mixed—I think some of the old guard there can be a little weird about it, but who cares, right? Fuck 'em."

I think about what the Nico of a year and a half ago would think about him saying that now, back when he was at his lowest. I'm proud of the kid. Anyway, what he said is _basically _exactly what I expected to hear. "That's good."

"Something going on, Jackson?"

I grit my teeth. Nico's pretty high up on the list of people I would trust with this stuff, but I still won't say a word. "No."

"If you're, like. I don't know. If you think you're bisexual or pansexual or whatever, then it's totally fine. Or if you're just questioning, even, it's not a big deal at all. No one's gonna judge you for that."

"I'm _not_," I say, a little more forcefully. "I'm into girls." I know _that much_, anyway.

He knows something's going on, but I don't think he can figure out what it is. "Well, okay then. Forget I said anything."

* * *

So the dream I had in January went something like this:

I wake up in a forest clearing at night. I'm used to weird dreams, so this didn't faze me at first, but then I stand up, and everything's _different_. My body . . . it wasn't the one I was used to. It was better, infinitely better. I was wearing a blue army jacket—one of those old-fashioned ones, like they had in the Civil War. Even though they would've only ever been tailored to fit men, my body _wasn't _male and it fit me perfectly. Dream logic, I guess. I was holding a bow. When I moved my head, I could feel long hair in a braid shift on my shoulders. A huge stag wanders into the clearing, and I nock an arrow.

The hunt began. I pursue the animal through the woods, standing swift and nimble on my feet. I'm skinnier, shorter, more graceful. I move effortlessly, perfectly, beautifully as I give chase. I wait for my moment, draw my bow, and loose the arrow. It sinks into the neck of the stag, a flawless shot. The kind of shot I'd need divine intervention to help me make in my worldly body. I approach the animal and instinctively pull out a silver knife, ready to skin my kill, when a woman approaches me from the shadows. I don't get a good look at her face or recognize her voice.

"Huntress, it is time."

After that, I woke up to a cold January morning in New York, feeling like I'd just been dipped in the River Styx again. All day, I felt wrong, like I was breathing the air from Tartarus again. All I could do was look at my body and think: have I _always _hated it this much? Someone had sent me a dream, I was sure of it.

The next day, I IMed Thalia, and we agreed to meet for burgers.

I asked her: Can you get me a meeting with Artemis?

She looked at me like I was crazy and said: Yeah, but you better have a good fucking reason.

When I asked Artemis next week if she sent me a dream about killing a stag, she gave me a sideways look. "No. I don't make a habit of sending men dreams."

That was the first time someone called me a man and it made me want to scream.

* * *

I try to fall asleep on Frederick Chase's couch later that night but it just isn't happening. Annabeth watched _Fast Five _with me before she went off to bed, but not even the greatest film of all time can help me sleep.

I walk as quietly as I can to the bathroom and flick on the light. The person I'm looking at is someone I've seen my entire life; messy black hair (longer than it had ever been, since he hadn't gotten a haircut in almost a year), green eyes. Shoulders that are wide as a football field. This person had stopped training and working out, so his muscles were beginning to atrophy, but still, he looks like goddamn a football player.

His face was all angles. Harsh jaw, boyish features. Sharp, distinguished, masculine. A face his mother called _handsome_. Everyone always told him that he'd look like his father when they grew up. He grimaces at the thought.

Below the belt, it was a similarly bad story. I'll spare you the grisly details, but I hated what he had down there.

Who I'm looking at—this person—he could never become _her. __She's_ the person I see, sometimes, when I close my eyes. A person I've never seen in real life before, but who I see in my dreams nearly every night. The person I _want_ to be. I fight the desire to shatter the mirror and instead decide I need some air.

I silently slide open the door to the backyard and tiptoe out onto the cool grass, which feels incredible between my toes. I know what I have to do. I know that if I don't tell someone, I'm going to die soon. If I don't do _something, _the next time I get attacked by a _karpos _at the supermarket (it's happened before), I'm just going to lay down and let it slice me to ribbons.

If I die soon, they'll call me _Percy Jackson _at my funeral. They'll call me a son of Poseidon. When they stuff my body in a burial shroud, it'll look like that _thing_ I see in the mirror. I'd be Percy Jackson in Elysium forever. I _can't _die soon.

I finger the drachma in my pocket, summon a light mist (not the magical variety) with my Poseidon powers. In a nearby streetlight's glow, I get a small rainbow. I say the bit to Iris and toss the coin in.

I go through a mental list of people I could talk to: Grover, who I haven't seen in a few months, maybe Chiron. I sigh. No, I need to talk to a demigod. Someone who would understand me, but wouldn't be afraid to give me her honest thoughts.

"Thalia Grace," I say, my voice shaky.

The rainbow shimmers, and I'm worried it's too weak to work until the daughter of Zeus's exasperated face appears to me. It's brilliantly sunny wherever she is, and she's squinting to make me out. "Jackson. What's up?"

"Where are you?" It's beside the point, but the sunlight is throwing me for a loop.

"We've been in Asia for about a month now. Right now, we're tracking some monsters in the ass-end of Myanmar. Locals think they're tigers."

"Oh, wow."

"Yeah, it's cool over here. Anyway, why the Hades did you call me? I've only got a few minutes to talk."

I open my mouth, but no words come out.

"Well, Styx, Jackson! Are you alright? Did something happen?"

Everything is swirling in my gut. I'm all shook up, like the dumbest can of Diet Coke you've ever seen. "I'm . . . I don't know how to say what I have to say."

She softens up. "Is this serious?"

"Kind of? Maybe? I think so?"

"Well, come on. You're the son of Poseidon, Hero of Olympus, great savior of the world, et cetera, et cetera. You can say whatever you need to say. Are you in trouble?" She suddenly looks concerned. "Is Annabeth?"

"No! No no no," I say quickly. "I'm . . . well—"

"Spit it the fuck out!"

"I think I'm transgender!"

I say it louder than I mean to, and I want to curl up into a ball and die, right there on the cool grass. I hope Annabeth is asleep, or at least I hope her window's closed. I press my eyes shut, since I don't want to see Thalia's reaction. I sit down, trying to breathe.

"Hey," the daughter of Zeus says. It's the softest I've _ever _heard that voice. "Hey. You're okay."

"I'm not _nearly _okay!" I carefully monitor my voice; I'm at something of a whisper-shout at the moment. "Every morning, I wake up, look in the mirror, and I want to grab Riptide and get to hacking. I—I—"

"Per—" She stops herself. "Jackson. Hey. Listen. I'm still here, I'm still talking to you, right? We're gonna talk this thing out, okay?"

I take a deep breath. Electricity courses all throughout my body. "Are you surprised?"

A few moments pass. "Are you gonna be mad at me if I say _yes_?"

* * *

A week later, with Thalia back in the states with some time off, we're getting Thai food in this little place near my mom's apartment.

"So have you told anyone else yet?"

I swear under my breath. "I haven't even gotten my pad thai yet and this is already starting?"

Thalia holds her hands up in surrender. "Okay. Okay!"

So why did I tell Thalia, of all people? Well, we're close, but still, she's _usually_ physically distant. I don't have to see her every day, and that makes talking about this with her easier. I love her, she loves me, and we're fine keeping each other's secrets. I'm not sure if I could bear telling one of the Seven yet.

Deep breath. "This is kind of a huge deal for me," I say, my words choked. "I never, umm. I've never talk about this stuff. It's hard for me."

The daughter of Zeus shrugs. She's wearing a t-shirt for some punk band, her usual spiky hair making her look like a cool teen out on the town if not for the bow slung over her back. I wonder if she'd be willing to teach me how to do eyeliner. For some reason, the image of me and Thalia going out as punk chicks to a metal show in some gross bar makes me so happy I want to cry. "I mean, hey. We regularly fight monsters and deal with insane gods. You think it'll freak me out that my cousin said that he—" She cuts herself off and shakes her head. "Pronouns. What's good for you in that department?"

I'm tapping my foot like crazy. "I'm closeted, remember?"

"Well, still. I don't know what you're going through, but I can guess _he _sounds pretty bad to you right now. You want me to use _she_? Just around you, even?"

I slowly nod.

"Well, okay then. It doesn't even register as _weird_ that my cousin told me she's—" She nods at me, filling in the word _transgender_, which we agreed to not say in public. Hearing her call me _she _makes my chest flutter. "Like, that's pretty normal compared to what we deal with regularly."

I never thought of it like that. Monsters didn't give a shit about the gender of the demigod they choose to snack on. On the grand scheme of things, this is pretty insignificant, you know, except for the constant high-level dread this has been causing me. "I guess so."

"How long have you known?"

_Tap tap tap. _"Things started getting real in January, but it's, uh. I can kinda put some things that happened earlier my life into context now."

"Like?"

I look out the window, trying to avoid her eyes. "When I was a little kid, I, uh. I used to want to wear dresses." The words spill out of my mouth so quickly that I wonder if she could even understand me. I remember when my mom took me for clothes shopping for first grade and I threw a fit when she led me to the boy's section. "I guess I just kinda wallpapered over all that when puberty hit. I just assumed it was some weird phase. Also . . . you know, I was kinda busy back then, with the Titans and everything. Then, recently, it's just hit me like a hellhound. I can't ignore it any longer."

"Oh," she says. "I guess . . . I guess I just assumed that if you're . . . you know, I think I guessed that someone like _you_ would always know. Like, the whole 'making your external body reflect your internal self' thing, right?"

_Tap tap tap. _"I don't know about any of that stuff. I just . . . I know who I am. Or who I _want _to be, anyway. It's complicated. I won't pretend like I understand it."

"Well," she says, "you have plenty of time to figure it out. And I'll talk to you whenever you need it."

A chuckle escapes my throat. She frowns. "Something funny?"

"This is the longest you've ever gone in a conversation without insulting me."

She rolls her eyes. "Jackson, c'mon. This is serious. I wouldn't joke about this."

The waitress—I note that her name is _Zoe_, which is a funny coincidence given that I'm eating with a Hunter—finally brings us our food. We both dig in and enjoy a few minutes of silence before I break it. "What do you think Zoë think if she knew I was . . ." I stab a piece of chicken. "What about Artemis?"

Thalia's eyebrow's shoot upwards in surprise. "Are you asking me if Artemis would accept you into the Hunters?"

"No! Would I even be allowed?" I feel my cheeks turn red. "I just . . . no. First of all, I have a girlfriend. Second of all, I don't want to be immortal. Forget I said it."

"Well, first of all, as far as I know, we haven't had any trans members. But that's doesn't mean we'd _prohibit _anybody, though I haven't really had a discussion with Artemis about it. As for Zoë . . ." She looked off into the distance, somewhere behind me. "I miss her, and I hate that we disagreed while she was alive. She was fiercer than anyone. But . . . I'm not gonna lie to you, okay? I have no idea what she'd say. She was thousands of years old. Old-fashioned."

I set my jaw and nod. "That's what I thought you'd say."

"Hey, do you . . ." Her electric eyes meet mine for the first time in this entire conversation. "Do you want me to ask Artemis? I could just, like, frame it as a hypothetical."

"I already said I have no interest in—"

"You did, but now _I'm _curious. It's the twenty-first century. Feels like the sort of thing we should have a policy on."

"You probably _should_, but seriously: don't ask her about it, at least not now."

"Whatever you say."

I space out for a second, then come back when I feel Thalia kick my leg. "You don't need her approval, you know," she says. "This has nothing to do with the gods. This is _you. _You have to take care of yourself and do what _you _need to do. And—I'm telling you—talk to Annabeth."

_Annabeth_. My stomach does a hundred backflips in a row, and suddenly I feel like a dopey teenager again who couldn't get it together to say "I think you're cute" to her until both of us almost died defending Mount Olympus. "I don't know what she'd say," I say in a small voice. "If I tell her, I risk losing her."

"She loves you," Thalia insists. "I . . . wasn't going to tell you this, but just a couple of weeks ago, she messaged me, saying she was worried about you. I know it's hard, but you really need to be honest with her."

"Easy for you to say."

"You've fought Titans and Giants and you can't manage to tell the woman that wants to marry you that—"

"Thalia, stop—"

"Don't be such a fucking _girl_, Jackson."

I glare at her. "Not funny."

* * *

**XOX**

**That's the end of Chapter I! In Chapter II we spend more time with Nico, Piper, Jason, and a ~~Secret Surprise Character~~! Who's the surprise character? Good question! **

**Leave a review with feedback and check back in soon!**


	2. II: Bubble Tea for the Dead

**AN: Hello again! Thanks to y'all who fav'd and followed this thing yesterday, I hope you stay positive on the story going forward! As of last night, I finished my third edit of the remaining chapters, so they should all be ready to go up in a timely manner. Anyway, enjoy Chapter II!**

**XOX**

* * *

_**II: Bubble Tea for the Dead**_

As Piper and I pass through the Sephora entranceway a new wave of anxiety washes over me. "I don't know if this is a good idea," I say through gritted teeth. _It's a terrible idea_! says that awful voice in my head.

It's December, and tomorrow is our monthly reunion. A few days ago, I sent Piper an Iris Message, explained my situation to her, and asked for her help. She was so entirely enthusiastic about everything that it freaked me out. She declared, then and there, that she was going to take me to the mall when I got to California.

"It's a great idea!" she said, beaming at me. "I've been so excited about this for _days_, girl." I feel fluttery when she calls me that, which makes me even more embarrassed than I already am. "C'mon, you can pretend to be my disinterested boyfriend if it makes it easier for you."

I chew on the inside of my cheek and follow her, not really sure of what exactly I was doing here. I asked Thalia for some help in this department a few weeks back, but she scoffed and told me she wasn't interested in a shopping trip. She said: _You're not punk, anyway, _which I kinda felt miffed by. I have no idea _who _I am.

Piper takes us towards the foundation. "Stand still, Percy, I need to figure out your skin tone." She sees me flinch when she says that. "Sorry, I'm being inconsiderate. Is there a name you prefer?"

While she picks through the little bottles, I almost tell her the handful of names I was considering. I've narrowed it down to three, but I'm leaning towards one. I need to talk to someone—a conversation I'm _really _not looking forward to—before I officially choose it.

I decide to say: "Uh. If you can just avoid a first name, that might be good."

"Sure! Now hold on, let me get a good look at you." I freeze, feeling silly, while Piper stares at my face, scrutinizing all the details. She looks so different these days; her hair was cut short and choppy, her arms more muscular. She looks much more grown-up. "Your eyes are so gorgeous. I'm thinking we go darker eye makeup—nothing too crazy, something you can do at home. It'll make your eyes the focus, which is what we want. I'll have you look at a few lipsticks, too, if that's okay." She pauses. "Let me know if that's _not _okay."

I take a deep breath. "I trust you."

"I just don't want to ambush you with this stuff. My siblings can be . . . _overbearing_, and I'm trying to be better than them."

"Trust me, I wouldn't have asked you if I didn't want help. I just don't know exactly how I want to . . ."

_Who do I want to be? _That probably seems like a weird question if you're not like me. Hades, a year ago, _I _would've said it was weird. I have this vague sense of _her_—the person I want to be—but I don't know exactly what she looks like, or what kind of clothes she wears.

"If you don't know how you want to look yet," Piper says warmly, "that's _fine_. You can figure that out as you go."

The daughter of Aphrodite guides me through the store, making suggestion after suggestion. I've watched a few basic makeup tutorials on YouTube, but I mostly just succeeded in making myself feel stupid, so I let Piper take the reins. I fork over a hefty sum for the bag of goodies and Piper leads me towards H&M. Again, before we go in, I pause.

She turns to me, eyes bright. "What's up?"

"What if I'm, like . . . What if someone sees me?"

"You're in Los Angeles, remember? No one knows you here. I doubt any legionnaires are spending a free day at a mall all the way down here."

_Good point. _"I'm . . . I'm like six-foot-four. My shoulders are a mile wide. I'm gonna look stupid."

"First of all, you're _not _six-four. You're _maybe _just a little bit over six-foot, which, you know, some girls are tall. There's places online that make specialty clothes for people like you. And as for shoulders? You'd be surprised what we can do about that. There are plenty of little ways to draw attention away from them."

Men's clothes were something I'd basically never thought about before, but I've been nervously excited about exploring the women's section with Piper since we made the plans. This is one of those dumb things that only made sense once I realized I was trans: I never gave a shit about what I looked like as a boy because, obviously, I wasn't interested in being a boy at all. Life is full of these dumb little realizations nowadays.

"I don't know," I say nervously.

"Do you think Clarisse La Rue has an easy time shopping for clothes? Still, I think she's pretty beautiful. She knows exactly who she is. You just have to figure out what works. Plus, you're lucky enough to have a daughter of Aphrodite as one of your best friends!"

_Clarisse. _All of those years of her calling me Prissy and now here I am. I almost laugh.

Piper takes my hand again. "If you're not okay with this, I'll take you back home. Seriously."

There's no charmspeak in her words, which I appreciate. I squint past her and through the door of the store, looking at the racks of clothes. "I'm okay. Just . . . let's take it slowly."

* * *

"You okay in there?"

I'm staring at myself in the mirror, feeling like I'm losing my mind.

There's the person I _usually _see in the mirror, with their angular face and their too-wide shoulders. But something's different this time; they're wearing different clothes. Specifically, a silky black top with diagonal-cut sleeves (Piper had _insis__ted _on diagonal) and a white skirt that flared out, hem just above their knees. They never really had much of a body hair problem, thank the gods, so their legs looked almost normal, almost feminine if you squinted hard enough.

I twirl around and let the material swish around me, and the butterflies are back. I can't remember how long ago it was that I last wore clothes like this. I occasionally catch glimpses of _her _in the mirror.

"I'm okay," I say, purposefully softening my voice. I inch towards the door and crack it open. "No one else is around?"

"I told you already: my dad won't be back for a few more days, and Jason is on the road. He won't be back from Camp Jupiter for a few more hours. It's just us. Come on out!"

I open the door and step out, and her eyes get wide.

"Yes! Wow! Thank you, mom!"

My eyes twitch. What if Aphrodite's watching this right now? What if _all _the Olympians are watching this right now, eyes peeled to the screen in the throne room, marveling at how Poseidon's kid could _possibly _be doing this right now?

"Okay, so now you can see some of what I was talking about, right?" she says eagerly. "A black top will make anyone seem narrower and the diagonal sleeves take even _more _of the emphasis off your shoulders. You pair it with a skater skirt like that—you see how it flares out? It draws the attention away, makes your top half seem less—"

"Gross?"

"_Shut up_! It evens you out, more than anything. Makes you look more proportionate. Now . . ." She leads me over to the guest room that her father had been kind enough to let me stay in and opens up the Sephora bag. She pats the bed and grins at me. "Sit right here."

Clothes were something I'd messed around in as a little kid, but makeup was an entirely different ballgame. I'd never had much of a desire to get into it until recently, but now I want all the help I can possible get. "I'm no expert on this, to be honest," she says deliberately, drawing out the syllables as she's searching for something in the bag. "It's embarrassing for an Aphrodite kid to admit that, I know, but I only really know the basics. All my brothers and sisters with makeup tutorials on YouTube can teach you more, but I can give you a rundown. First: primer."

Over the next hour, Piper dabs and brushes at my face with a dozen different things and tells me to open my eyes, keep my eyes closed, turn this way, turn that way. I try and keep the names straight as best as I can, but my stupid ADHD brain makes everything blend together into a soup of words. Wordsoup. After she finishes stabbing my eyes with (what feels like) a half-dozen knives, she steps back and admires her handiwork, like she's a daughter of Hephestus and I'm a sword she's been working on for days.

She grins widely. "I want you to see yourself. Let me grab a mirror!"

When she returns with one, I hold it reflective side down, some part of me not wanting to see it. Deep breath. I flip it around and make a noise that's something like "_guh_."

It's . . . it's almost _her_. Almost _me_. My face looks like, you know, a _face, _instead of the weird assortment of triangles I usually see in the mirror. What leaps out to me are my eyes, which almost look cute if I squint hard enough. Piper was right; the eyeliner and the dark makeup made them pop, and I'd always had thick eyelashes, so I was already covered in that department. All the little imperfections on my face that I'd become accustomed to were hidden by foundation and concealer. A pale red liquid lipstick that Piper had said would be perfect for me _was_ perfect for me; not too flashy or exaggerated. My face was still angular, yeah, but this was actually something I could look at. I slowly touch my cheekbones just to make sure the face I'm looking at is actually mine.

"There's a hundred little things you could _also _be doing," Piper says. "You could mess around with contouring, which, I decided not to open up _that _whole can of worms, because I don't know much about that stuff. I didn't really touch your eyebrows, but you can do lots of things in that department."

I nod, and it feels like my mouth is full of cotton balls. "This is incredible, Piper, I don't . . . I don't know what to say."

"I'm glad you like it," she says, practically beaming. "You look really nice."

"I just . . ." I ran my fingers softly along my jaw. "I wish my jaw wasn't so . . ."

She nods. "After we talked the other night, I did some research," she says, twirling a piece of her hair around her finger, "and there's surgeries you could get if you want your face to _really _be different. Nothing drastic, but, like, there's a couple millimeters of bone that can be shaved off here or there that would feminize it further. Or . . ." Her voice trails off.

"Or what?"

"I don't know, exactly. You remember when Frank received the Blessing of Mars, right? He sprouted three extra inches out of nowhere, got all . . . muscly."

"That's kind of the _opposite _of what I want, so—"

"That's not I meant. It's . . . maybe there's some other kind of blessing that could help you. I've never heard of one, but . . ." She shrugged. "What I'm saying is: compared to other people like you, you _might_ have it easier. There might be a magical solution."

Somehow, the thought never occurred to me. I'm about to say something when I hear the sound of sneakers clomp up the stairs.

"Piper? You here?" comes the voice of Jason.

The two of us go wide-eyed, both frozen.

"Is Percy still here? I wanted to show him something." Before either of us can react, the door to the guest room swings open. There's Jason Grace, holding a paper bag full of burritos, probably vegan. "I wanted to—"

He sees the two of us his eyebrows jump in surprise. "Uh. What, uh. I, don't, umm . . ."

Piper and I share a glance. I can practically hear her voice in my head: _it's going to be okay. _I heave a sigh and pat the bed next to me. "Sit down, buddy. We need to have a talk."

* * *

Nico looked like I shot his puppy when I asked him for a favor, but here we were, high up in the hills of the Angeles National Forest. Eventually, he broke down and agreed to it after I promised to buy the shovel, dig the hole, and buy us a late dinner beforehand. Which is why, later that same night (after I reluctantly scrubbed off Piper's handiwork and put boy clothes back on), Nico was sitting against the trunk of a cottonwood tree, sipping on bubble tea, watching me dig a hole.

"I haven't done this in a long time," he warns me for the hundredth time. "I don't _like _doing it. Trying for a _specific _soul is hard, even now that I've got a good handle on my powers. If you want to talk to someone so badly, I could smuggle you into the Underworld. Even into Elysium, if that's what you need."

I shake my head. "Never again."

Since Annabeth and I escaped Tartarus, the thought of going down there and breathing that air again . . . it triggered me pretty badly. When I was talking to Chiron about this (since mortal psychologists weren't exactly capable of hearing me talk about the _Underworld_), he said that was typical PTSD. Thinking about the Underworld shakes me so deeply I almost lose my balance.

Nico nods gravely. Sometimes I forget that this fifteen-year-old boy had suffered _alone_ what Annabeth and I had barely made through together. The last thing he would want is my sympathy, but still:_ poor kid._ "Trust me, I get it. Hey, you're . . . you're not going to ask me to summon Leo, are you?"

The thought _had _crossed my mind when I was gathering the guts to ask him about this, but hearing him say that made me think the answer would be _no_ to my following question. "Is that a possibility?"

Nico purses his lips. "I felt his death when everything happened. But . . . it's weird. I felt him die, but something was off about it. I think if I looked for him in Elysium, he wouldn't be there."

I give him a blank stare. "What?"

"He was tricky, you know? He could fix anything. I just . . . if you were going to ask me to summon him, I want to make sure you know that it might not work."

"I wasn't." _Instead, you're doing something far more selfish. _I really, _truly _hate that voice in my head. "I don't know if you're gonna _like _who I want to see, but it's not Leo."

Nico rubs his temples. "Percy . . ."

Hearing him say that name feels like a sucker punch. You'd think I'd get used to it, but I really haven't. I try and shrug it off. "I'll owe you, I promise. I'll tell you who it is before you perform the summons. I need you for this, Nico."

His eyes go wide. Part of me feels bad, like I'm exploiting his childhood crush on me. I still never really forgave myself for causing him all that anguish. Then I think: _just give it a few minutes and any feelings you had for me will evaporate. _"Tell me now or I won't do it."

I freeze and get into a staring contest with him, then realize there's no chance of me outlasting him on that front. "Zoë Nightshade," I say, trying to be as casual as possible.

"Zoë Nightshade," he repeats. I can't read his expression. "You want me to summon the woman responsible for recruiting Bianca into the—"

"I don't want to do this either, but I need to." My throat feels dry, my tongue like sandpaper. "You'll understand when I speak to her. You're . . . you're going to find out some stuff about me tonight, and I need you to keep it to yourself, at least right now."

Nico exhales loudly and curses a few times under his breath. "You _will _owe me for this."

"I promise you: I'm good for it."

After a few more minutes and a bit more convincing, Nico says the hole is good enough. He opens up the big bag of In-N-Out we got on the way here and pours burger after burger, fry after fry into the pit (our order fills up the hole pretty nicely, even _after _we put a hefty dent into it on the car ride). Next, he takes the two extra bubble teas we ordered from this place Piper recommended in Pasadena and pours them in too.

"Let our chosen dead taste again," he says in a low voice. I haven't seen him do this in years, but my hair stands on end. It's already chilly out, but now he's practically radiating ice. "Let her rise and take this offering. Let her remember. Zoë Nightshade, you are summoned!"

He begins chanting in Ancient Greek, and I remember with full clarity how much I hated this when it happened all those years go. The perfectly good food and bubble tea turn into a brown sludge, and mist curls from the dirt. Slowly, from the pit, a beam of light takes a familiar shape.

Before me stands a spectral version of Zoë Nightshade. I remember her being taller (even now, we stand about even), then dimly realize that _I_ was a lot shorter when I was fourteen. Still, it's her: silver jacket, bow slung over her back, crown braided into her hair. She still looks like a haughty warrior princess, even in her spectral form. "Perseus Jackson?" she asks, as though she's not certain it's me.

It takes me a second, but I finally manage to say. "Hi."

"You offered me hamburgers."

I nod. "I was worried you wouldn't want to speak to a . . ."

"To a boy?"

I swallow back what I _want _to say. "Yeah. So I tried to make the offering as good as I possibly could."

She looks around, and suddenly I wonder if this is the first time she's seen, you know, _Earth _since she died. The idea of Elysium . . . I don't know. It's an eternal party, sure, but I imagine the Underworld can get lonely. "You succeeded in saving the world, so I must congratulate thee. But my time here is short. Why have you offered me hamburgers?"

"I . . . I have something to ask you." I glance at Nico, who's still chanting, keeping other spirits away. "Have you . . . did you ever know anyone who was . . . do you know what the word _transgender _is? Or what it means, really, for someone to be trans?"

Zoë looks at me sideways. "I'm . . . familiar."

I take a deep breathe and close my eyes. "I'm transgender. I'm . . . not a man, somewhere inside me, and I can't ignore it any longer."

My eyes stayed glued shut. If Nico reacted physically, I wasn't able to see it. He continued chanting.

After a few seconds, Zoë says, "I see. Well, I suppose that explains . . . quite a few things, really."

Upon opening my eyes, I see that her expression didn't change even a little bit. "Really?" I breathe.

She nods, and I see the faintest hints of a smile on the corners of her mouth. "Thy mere presence did not repulse me, which is a rarity for boys. You behaved fairly, acted without prejudice. I . . . if not for thy sex, I could've seen thee as a sister. And now here you are."

A thousand little explosions go off in my stomach, and I can't help the smile from spreading across my face. "That means a lot, Zoë."

"Is that all you summoned me for?" she asked, raising an eyebrow. "My approval isn't worth much to thee."

"It's . . . it's more than that."

_This _is the part I'd been dreading. When I ask her my question, I feel like I've swallowed an oversize jawbreaker.

Once I finish, she gives me a warm look. "You wield _Anaklusmos _with nothing but honor. I see no reason why this would be any different. If you wish for my blessing: I grant it."

Her figure shimmers, beginning to weaken. "One last thing," she says. "Seek out Artemis and the Hunters. Join the Hunt or don't, the decision belongs to thee. Regardless, I implore thee: go to my lady and ask to see Willow, one of the Hunters. One of my sisters."

I slowly nod. _Willow_. I wonder what she has to do with any of this. "Thank you so much, Zoë."

She nods, smiling. "Farewell."

When she disappears, I collapse to the grass and hold my head in my hands. Tears stream down my face, the first time I've felt them in months. _She accepted me,_ I think numbly. _She gave her blessing._

This was where my plan ended, where I planned on being rejected and forced to give up this entire crazy thing. Here I am instead, sitting next to a pit full of fast food sludge in the middle of a national forest. _She_ _gave me her blessing._

I hear Nico's chanting stop, his sneakers tread across the grass. "Are you okay?" he asks in a small voice, right next to me. His hand is on my shoulder.

_Am _I okay? I take a deep breathe and look up at him. There's a tear in the corner of his eye. "Right now? I'm exhausted. I want to pass out."

* * *

I drive us slowly out of the forest, being careful on the twisting roads. All I want to do is get to Piper's house so I can crash and have twelve (or more, if Hypnos is feeling generous) hours of flawless, dreamless sleep. I don't put on music; I drink in the silence.

"Hey," he eventually says. "I, uh. I know how you feel right now."

There's not enough energy in me to respond.

"In Croatia, back when I sailed on the _Argo II, _I was forced to confess my feelings for you to Cupid in front of Jason. I thought my entire world was ending, like I was a caged animal. So I understand you. For whatever that's worth."

_It's worth a lot_, is what I want to say, but those words can't come out of my mouth. "You're not the first to know. I told Thalia a month ago now, and Piper took me shopping earlier today. Jason kinda found out on accident."

"How did it go?" His voice is barely above a whisper.

I drum my fingers on the steering wheel. "Fine."

"That's good."

"Yeah."

Nico sighs and looks out the window. "I just . . . I . . . I hated you, for a while. I hated you because I thought you were so _normal_, so easy to accept. I hated you because I thought you had it easy. If I'd known what you were going through, I never would've—"

"—been attracted to me?" I fill in.

"No! That's _not _what I was going to say. I . . ." His voice trails off, and for nearly a minute, it's just us and the winding roads. "It was unfair of me to assume everything was smooth-sailing for you. _Super _unfair. I just want to apologize for that."

"It's fine," I say, trying my best to give him a reassuring smile. "You had no way of knowing."

"Still, I'm sorry. And, uh, I support you, obviously. In case you need to hear that."

I _do _need to hear it. "I appreciate it, Nico."

"So you haven't told Annabeth yet?"

I white-knuckle the steering wheel. "I'm passing on that question."

"Okay, uh, no pressure, then. Anyway, I have two questions about what Nightshade said. Is it okay if I ask them?"

"Sure."

"Are you actually considering joining the Hunters?"

I shake my head _no_, definitively. "Annabeth."

"That's what I thought. Also . . . what you asked her at the end there, about your name. Do you want me to call you . . ?"

_Deep breath_. It's been my frontrunner for weeks now, but no one had ever called me it before. I wanted to ask her before I seriously considered it, but now I need to hear it come out of someone else's mouth. "Just in private, maybe."

"Okay," he says. "Okay. Zoe Jackson. I can do that."

My heart pounds as we wind our way through the night.

* * *

**Finally, I can start calling her _Zoe _instead of t!Percy! When I was first thinking about this story, I looked at a list of Greek names, saw "Zoe" on there, and instantly fell in love with it. This scene with ****Zoë Nightshade is the first thing I wrote for this entire project as a result.**

**That summoning isn't _exactly _canon to how Nico does it in _Battle of the Labyrinth_, but when I settled on naming t!Percy Zoe, I knew this conversation would have to happen. _The Titan's Curse _might be my favorite Rick Riordan book from top-to-bottom, so I was happy to write ****Zoë Nightshade for a little bit! I've been hemming and hawing over whether or not the scene is too fluffy/corny/OOC for ****Zoë (I find her difficult to write), but I needed her to give the newly-minted Zoe Jackson the approval she needed.**

**Anyway! Did you hate it? Like it? Feel indifferent to it? Leave a review! Reviews are great. Tomorrow will be Chapter III (Hazel! Annabeth! Characters violating promises they've previously made! Scandal!), so stay on the lookout for that!**


	3. III: Vegetables in the Dark

_**III: Vegetables in the Dark**_

Our reunion the next day is the most painful yet.

Everyone had managed to show up to the McLean mansion for our December get-together a week before Christmas; our regular six, plus Nico (who brought along Will), Coach Hedge (his family in tow, including a dangerously cute baby satyr), and even Reyna, who kept to herself but still smiled as she sat with Nico and Will on the outskirts of the party. We were festive for a second reason as well: it was Hazel's fifteenth birthday.

The whole time, I feel that wall I mentioned before. Piper and Jason kept giving me looks across the room, like, _we feel sorry for you, but don't know what to do. _I guess it's better than looks of disgust, but still, it makes me feel like a spectacle. I suspect that'll get worse when I came out.

_When_. It no longer felt like a question of _if_.

Jason was fine about it, by the way. You can only hear "oh wow, I never would've guessed!" so many times before it gets grating, though. He was probably still wrestling with it, trying to understand why on earth I'd willingly give up _bro hugs_.

Annabeth slowly moves away from me and towards Piper and Reyna, which I can't really blame her for. A piece of driftwood could hold a conversation better than me these days. I'm on the way to Tristan's fridge to grab another root beer when Hazel intercepts me, a smile on her face.

"Happy birthday!" I wrap her in a hug. I miss her and Frank, I miss the old days. I mean, sure, it was nearly the end of the world, but still, that was back when I was able to laugh and joke with my friends and not feel like an alien around the only people who understood me. _Understood _me, past-tense. "You gonna get your learner's permit soon? What's the age for that in California?"

She almost laughs. "New Rome isn't really a _car _city."

"Oh. Duh."

Her expression changes and she gets serious all of a sudden. "I wanna talk to you outside, if that's okay. Just for a minute."

I shrug. "Whatever you want, you're the birthday girl."

She leads me to the backyard and manages to say "Piper told me about you" just as I open the tab on my soda, which immediately falls out of my hand, forming a brown puddle in the grass that reminds me of Nico's offering last night.

"Piper did _what_?"

"She told me that you're not a boy," she says softly. "That you're trans."

I curse under my breath and try to regulate my breathing. "That wasn't for her to tell you," I say slowly. "I need to have a _long_ talk with her."

"Percy—" She sees the look on my face and immediately follows it up with: "Sorry. I won't call you that. Honest mistake."

I shake my head. "Hazel, no offense, but I need a second to cool off."

_Deep breaths. _Why on earth would Piper do this? She promised she wouldn't tell a soul. I'm thinking of the many different ways I can strangle her when Hazel clears her throat. "Hey," she says. "I support you in all of this. You know that, right?"

Words catch in my throat. "I . . . did she tell anyone else?"

Hazel shook her head. "Not that I know off. Let me go get her."

"No, it's—"

She's gone before I can finish the thought, leaving me in a cold backyard with no one. I want to scream. _Piper_. I knew I should've kept my cards close to my chest, not said anything. I hear the door open up and two sets of footsteps on the wooden deck behind me.

"I'm so sorry," comes the voice of Piper. She _sounded _sorry. "Jackson, look at me—"

"Did you tell _anyone _else?"

"No! I swear on the River Styx I didn't. And I swear on the River Styx that I won't tell anyone else."

I hear the distant sound of thunder. "I should've made you swear before," I say dryly.

The two of them sit on either side of me, and I almost ask for me space until Hazel took my hand. "Piper told me," she says, "because she wanted to know if I could manipulate the Mist to help you out."

"Oh," I say in a small voice.

"I still shouldn't have done it," Piper says, but even as she's apologizing I find myself forgiving her. _Charmspeak, _I realize. _Unfair_. "I just wanted to know if there was some extra way she could help you."

There's a pause, like both of them are waiting for me to say something. "Hazel?" Piper asks. "Well?"

The daughter of Pluto runs her hands through her hair, sighing. "I don't know. I could summon the Mist for you if you wanted, I could even do it right now. It's not permanent, though, and it's not the easiest thing for me to do. Plus . . . I'm not sure if it would change how you feel. Piper mentioned that you had some pretty bad dysmorphia, and—"

"It's dysphoria," I interrupt on reflex. The YouTube videos I've been watching made that clear enough. "It's called gender dysphoria."

Hazel nods. "I don't know if the Mist would help you in that department. Or if it would help you, and then later, once if dispels, you might feel even worse."

I remember my dream, stalking through the woods in a body that felt _right _in a way that mine didn't. I remember the feeling when I woke up and that _wasn't _my body anymore, like I was coming apart at the seams. I shake my head. "I don't know if I want to risk it."

"You just let me know. In the meantime I'll do more research and see if I can figure something out," Hazel replies. She kisses me on the cheek and smiles at me. "Love you."

"Love you too." I feel vaguely light-headed.

"Hey," Piper says gingerly. "Your name . . ."

I take a deep breath and decide it's time for them to hear it. "Zoe."

_Zoe. _It wasn't on that list of names I'd written in Riptide's ink a month ago, but it came to me after speaking to Thalia. As soon as I heard it, I knew that was _me_. The awkward thing, of course, is that we _knew _a Zoe, and if you're thinking that's a little weird: part of me agrees with you. This isn't some creepy attempt to _become _Zoë Nightshade or anything, in case I need to say that. I tried to find a name that resonated as well with me as Zoe, but none did. Now that I have her permission, I feel better about it.

Zoe Jackson. I liked how it sounded when Nico said it. That's me.

The daughter of Aphrodite grips my hand. "I think it suits you."

"I love it," says Hazel.

I'm at serious risk of crying, so I blink hard. "This is far too sweet and nice for me right now," I say, almost laughing. "C'mon, let's head back in."

* * *

I wake up to the smell of pastries and coffee.

"So nice to see you, Zoe Jackson!"

"What . . . ?"

I'm suddenly seated at a table across from a woman wearing an elaborate dress, like something from centuries ago. Her torso pulls sharply inward at an impossible angle, like she's wearing the world's most dramatic corset. I breathe shallowly and realize with a start that _I'm _wearing a corset as well.

My eyes slam downwards and examine the blue dress I'm wearing. Puffy sleeves, corset, wide skirt. I wiggle my fingers, but these hands don't belong to me; they're small, dainty, not used to sword-fighting. I feel a mass of curls shift on my shoulders when I move my head.

It's not real. I didn't _actually _wake up. I'm sitting across from Aphrodite outside a Parisian cafe, and it's only a dream.

"You do look _stunning. _You simply _must _grow your hair out and curl it like this, my dear! " the goddess of love says with a sigh. I recognize her from our encounter years ago on my quest to rescue Annabeth, but she seems different now, maybe even a bit more sinister. "Belle Époque. Such a lovely time, such lovely fashion."

I blink and examine our surroundings. We sit at a cafe above a river (what's the name of the river in Paris? I can't remember), and the Eiffel Tower gleams in the background. "Why have you—"

Aphrodite motions for a sharply-dressed waiter and barks commands at him in French, giving him a radiant smile. "How do you take your coffee, my dear?" she asks me.

I glare at her. "I don't drink coffee."

"Suit yourself," she says with a shrug. "I'm sure you're wondering why I've graced you with my presence."

"Not sure if I'd phrase it like that."

"Oh, hush!" she says, and I fell my lips lock shut from her godly charmspeak. "I know you. I know you're grateful for the opportunity to wear this fetching dress, to feel like a Parisian debutante. I know you yearn to feel _beautiful _above all else. All those years of feeling invisible as a boy, and now you want to be _seen_. You want only to be _wanted_. I empathize completely!"

No words will come out of my mouth, so I can't do much more than glare.

"Still, in this regard, I leave you to mortal means. It would be no fun _at all _if I zapped your mortal body and you transformed overnight into a gorgeous warrior princess! That would take no effort on my part, you know, but it would be so _boring_! Not dramatic at all. No, what I must insist on, darling, is that you speak truthfully with Annabeth Chase. You simply _must _tell her who you are, Zoe Jackson!"

"I don't know what she'll say," I manage, my jaw feeling sore from the strain.

"I know! Isn't it terribly exciting? It's the ultimate test of a relationship!" she says excitedly. She pauses briefly to sip on the coffee that the waiter brings to her. "It will test the two of you! Even _I _do not know how it shall turn out, but remember, sometimes you _must _have your heart broken so someone else might mend it. Perhaps both of you are destined to fall for other men!"

"I'm into girls," I say, feeling myself turn red.

She laughs, the sound of it melting into my brain. "Semantics! Yes, perhaps both of you have yet to find the _women_ of your dreams! Regardless, you should not delay further. Face your fears, Zoe Jackson. Whether it ends as comedy or tragedy, we shall soon see."

* * *

The morning after, Annabeth is chatting with Piper in the kitchen over bagels when I approach them. "What's up, you two?"

"We wanted to recreate the old morning ritual," Annabeth explains, smiling. "The year when you were . . ." She wants to say _gone_, but she can't manage it. "We had a lot of early mornings, helping Leo out with the construction of the _Argo II_."

"Leo," Piper says to no one.

"Leo," I agree.

That turns the mood of the conversation until Annabeth sips on her coffee. I note that her cup has the name of one of Tristan McClean's action movie roles. I glance at Piper's mug: _Warrior: Overkill_, it says, above a crosshair. I think I saw that one in tenth grade. "Are all your mugs promo items from B-movies your dad was in?"

"Percy!" Annabeth chides. "Don't be rude."

_Both _me and Piper flinch on that one, and Annabeth definitely notices. She furrows her brows. "It's fine, that's not rude at all. They _are _B-movies," Piper says. She gives me a pained look. "Let me, uh . . . let me go see if Coach Hedge needs any help with the baby."

That's a weak excuse, and all three of us know it, but she scoots out of the kitchen and towards the stairs in record time. Annabeth squints at her as she goes. "I doubt the baby needs help," she says thoughtfully. "Mellie can handle it if Gleeson can't."

"Yeah, probably. Hey, I've—"

"We need to talk, Seaweed Brain. Right now."

* * *

She drives and we sit in silence. Long, _agonizing _silence. When she starts heading south and I see a sign for Santa Monica, I shudder. "Don't take us to the pier."

Her eyes practically bugged out of her head. "_You_, of all people? _You _don't want to go to the beach?"

"It's where I fought Ares, don't you remember?" I can't believe I, as a puny twelve-year-old, stood against a walking incarnation of war and didn't end up in a dozen pieces. It feels so unbelievable that I can hardly remember how I managed it.

Her stormy eyes go wide. "Oh, gods."

"Yeah. Anywhere else, please."

She heads northwest instead and takes the One halfway to Oxnard before she pulls over a scenic area overlooking the Pacific. "Is this okay?"

I nod. "Yeah. This is fine."

"Good." She turns to me, locks me with those eyes of hers. She looks confused and frustrated, and it hurts enough that I want to disappear into the leather of the car seat. "Is there something going on with you and Piper?"

There's clear subtext here: _something _implies more than just anything. I go red. "Of course not. How could you think that?"

Annabeth throws up her hands. "I'm just trying to understand _any of this_, Percy! Why you've been avoiding me, why you won't come to New Rome, why you never talk to me anymore. It's been months of this, and then you decide to show up in Los Angeles a few days early, staying with her rather than me. Are you gonna blame me for thinking _something_ might be going on?"

I see the tears in her eyes, and I can feel them in mine as well. "Nothing's happening."

"Something is _clearly _happening, and I just want to know why you refuse to tell me about it. If your PTSD is flaring up, gods, you know you can talk to me about it. You can talk to me about _anything_!"

_That's what you think. _I stare at my hands; my big, dumb, callused hands. Never the hands I'd want them to be, no matter what I did. "I love you so much," I say under my breath. "I'm really sorry. I don't know if . . ." I try and find the words. "You know when you, like . . . Okay. Let's say, like, hypothetically, you're chopping up some vegetables in the dark."

"I love where this is going already."

"Shut up! It's like . . ." I think for a second. "You slice yourself with the knife. You can tell it's a bad cut."

"Probably because you're chopping up carrots in the dark like an idiot."

"Stop! It's like . . . you know it's gnarly, but because you can't see it yet, it almost isn't real. Like. If you can just stay in the dark, where you can't see it, you don't have to do anything about it. But"—my voice catches in my throat—"when you turn on the lights, you have no choice but to deal with it."

She's silent. I meet her eyes and she nods, like, _go ahead_.

"I wanna turn on the lights," I say, realizing how corny the words are as they leave my lips. "I just don't know what's gonna happen after I do it."

She takes a deep breath. "Percy, please—"

"Don't call me that." The words are out of my mouth before I can think them over.

I continue studying my hands while she thinks. "What? Why? Do you want to go by Perseus now?"

"No," I say as a exhale.

I feel her hand snake into mine. "Talk to me. Right now."

"I'm . . . I'm transgender."

I try and gauge her reaction, but she doesn't say anything. She has her eyes on the sea. "I, uh. I've been thinking about this for a long time," I say, the words nervously falling out of my mouth.

"How long?" Annabeth asks softly.

_She's speaking to me, at least_. "Umm. Well, there were little things that happened when I was a kid. Like, I always wanted to try on girl's clothes, that kinda thing. But . . . a lot of this started in January, worse than it had ever been before. I just—"

"And you've been avoiding me since then?"

"The person you _want _me to be, that you _expect _me to be . . ." I shake my head. "That person is different from _me_. Or the _me _I want to become, I guess. You fell in love with the son of Poseidon, and I'm not him. It hurts to pretend to be him around you, or the Seven, or my mom, or anyone else."

She turns to me, choking back sobs. It's been a mercifully long time since I've seen the best person I know break down in tears, and now it's my fault that it happened. "I . . ." Whatever she wants to say, it dies when she _really _starts sobbing.

She lays her head on my shoulder and cries. We sit there like that, looking out at the ocean. Today's grey—grey water, grey clouds, grey filter on everything—and I'm pretty sure it's supposed to rain. How appropriate. I squeeze her hand, not saying anything. Words couldn't describe the way either of us was feeling.

Annabeth told me a while ago that she liked to listen to instrumental music while she worked, and that's the playlist she put on for the car ride. Right now, this mesmerizing acoustic guitar was on the verge of putting me to sleep before she finally stirred and looked up at me.

"I'm sorry it hurt you so much to be with me," she says in a shaky voice. "If I'd known . . . honestly, you should've told me right away. As soon as you were questioning."

"I thought I was going _crazy_," I insist. "Plus, I didn't know what you were going to say."

"I would've said: 'Don't be stupid, you're not going crazy.'"

"You're too stubborn for your own good."

"Don't you dare say what's _good _for me, Seaweed Brain." She softly rubs her hand along my jaw, which just reminds me of how much I _hate _my jawline. "So. Do you wanna . . ." She makes a wiggly hand gesture that can be interpreted a hundred different ways.

I look at her blankly.

"You know! Do you wanna actually do it?"

"Do _what_?"

"Hades's Hangnail," she grumbles, rolling her eyes. "Do I have to spell it out? Would it be easier for you if I wore a sandwich board?"

"Say what you want to say! You won't offend me."

"Do you want to . . . you know. Come out? Hormones? The whole . . ." She clears her throat and makes the hand gesture again, this time in the general region of my pelvis. "The whole _thing_?"

Oh.

_Oh._

"Sorry, but do I go around asking questions about _your _junk?"

"You said I wouldn't offend you! And, come on, it's a reasonable question for me to ask! I'm you're _girlfriend, _in case you forgot, so it affects me too."

I burn bright red. "It affects me a _lot_ more than it affects you. And . . . I don't want to talk about it right now. That's something I can worry about when I'm an adult."

"You _are _an adult."

"I mean, in, like. I dunno. A few years. I have some . . . _things _to sort through in the meantime."

"Some things to sort out," she repeats.

I nod, squinting at her. She seems to have collected herself, which is a relief, but now I can't figure out what she's thinking. "I'm guessing Piper knows," she says softly. "That would explain that whole situation."

"Yeah. She, uh. She took me shopping a couple of days ago. Makeup. Clothes." I feel embarrassed all over again, saying these things to my girlfriend. I never thought I'd say a word to her about it. "Thalia . . . I told her a month ago, though. She was the first."

"Thalia," she repeats. "Thalia before me?"

I roll my eyes. I hate when she gets like this. "I needed to tell someone I barely see. I needed distance. Thalia's distant."

"Who else knows?"

"Her and Piper, which you already know about. They're the only two I told on purpose. Jason found out on accident, same with Hazel. Nico, he kinda needed to find out. Shit, I guess Zoë Nightshade too."

She looks at me with a blank expression. "You told half the _Argo II_ and . . . did you say Zoë Nightshade? How on _earth_ did you—"

I explain the summoning to her, how we gave her an offering. She nods. "Okay, but _why_?"

"My name's Zoe." My foot taps rapid-fire on the floor of her car. "Zoe's what I picked. I've wanted to pick it for a few weeks now. It's weird, but . . . I wanted her blessing."

Her hand finds mine. "Zoe?" The name sounds delicate on her lips. My chest flutters. I _really _want her to say it again.

I nod.

She bites her lip. "I think I need some time to process all of this," she says, slowly and deliberately, like she's balancing an equation. "I don't know how long. I just know . . ." She touches my face again. I shiver. "We planned on Christmas together. If it's okay, I'm gonna spend it with my family instead."

I open my mouth but don't know exactly what to say. What I want to say is: _I don't want this to be how we end__. _But I know she's set in her way, and I respect her for it. I'd have wanted time too if I was in her place. She fills in the silence by kissing me.

"Is that okay?" she asks again.

"I . . ." I stare out at the grey water. "Yeah, that's, uh. That's okay. Maybe that would be good for me too."

"Exactly. It sounds like you some need time to figure out who you are," she says softly. "When you do, IM me, okay? Then we'll talk."

It feels like our conversation is over, but then we both realize that we're half-an-hour from the house we're both staying. "I could, uh. I could give you a ride back," she says lamely, looking vaguely embarrassed. "I won't ask you any more questions, if you don't want me too.

"Yeah, uh. I need to make an Iris Message first, if that's okay. Outside."

I lean against the outside of Annebeth's dad's car, listening to the waves crashing on the rocks below. It still feels so _distant _to me, like I couldn't call on it if I needed it. I wonder if Dad doesn't approve.

Still, I manage to make a rainbow and toss in the drachma. When Thalia answers, I say: "I need to come to the Hunt."

* * *

**This whole chapter was . . . not easy for me to write! The scene with Annabeth in particular really took it out of me. Anyway, things continue to be _difficult_ for Zoe when she visits the Hunters of Artemis in the next chapter.**

**Did you love it? Hate it? Have any general comments? Leave a review! I try and respond to all reviews if I can. New update tomorrow.**


	4. IV: Willow

**_IV: Willow_**

Usually, the Hunters of Artemis manage to find _me_, not the other way around.

I shiver in the winter jacket Piper picked out for me and check my watch again: Three in the afternoon, December twenty-first. Winter solstice. Shortest day of the war, annual summit of the Olympians. If the _venti _Nico and I had fought along the trail earlier were any indication, monsters were out and about.

"You know where we're going?" Nico asks hesitantly. Here we are, standing on a freezing-cold windblown beach, and they're not here.

I shiver. "We know we're in the right place. Deception Pass State Park. She said Bowman Bay, and I'm pretty sure"—I gesture to the bay in front of us—"_that's _Bowman Bay. The compass says north, and that's where we're supposed to be."

Some background: Thalia had told me the Hunters had set up camp on Fidalgo Island, which is off the coast of Washington. She jokingly called it "the edge of the world," which, I don't know, Canada's right there, and I'm pretty sure that's part of the world, but still. Parts of Fidalgo reminded me of Alaska, so I could understand why she called it that. Snow still hadn't fallen, but everything was cold, matted down by wind and freezing rain. Rocks jabbed out of the bays and inlets randomly, angrily. It was beautiful in a haunting kind of way.

Nico had offered to shadow-travel me up here and help me get where I was going _("two_ favors you owe me now," he'd grumbled), on the condition that I carry my own luggage. So there's a canvas duffel bag thrown over my shoulder, full of the clothes and makeup Piper had picked out for me. That was fine when I thought Nico would get us to the Hunters' camp without any issue and far more annoying now that we've been wandering for two hours and dusk was approaching.

"Hold on, let me . . ." He reaches into his leather jacket's pocket and pulls out a little brochure with a map.

I stare blankly at him. "You had a map this _whole time?_"

"Shh. Okay, so if that's Bowman Bay, we're heading towards . . ." He squints. With low, grey clouds and night approaching, his dyslexia is probably giving him fits. "'Lighthouse Point.' It's this little peninsula, like, right that way. If we just . . ."

I notice the first silvery jackets in the woods to our west. "We're friendly!" I call out. "We were invited by your lieutenant, Thalia Grace."

Through the trees, I see at least two gleaming silver arrowheads. I glare at Nico and we both put our hands up. "What business have two men with the Hunt?" comes the shrill voice of a teenage girl.

That doesn't feel great, but I try and shrug it off. "Ask Thalia Grace! She invited me personally! And, uh, my friend here too!"

Nico frowns. "I got you this far, Zoe. I'm not . . ." He shakes his head. "The Hunters. They took my sister from me. I already feel weird about leading you here. Now that you're here, I'm going to leave, okay?"

"How am I going to get back home, then? Am I building my house on Fidalgo Island? Frolicking among the foxgloves?"

He rolls his eyes. "Okay, calm yourself. I'll wait for you at Rosario Beach, where we first landed here. Just don't take too long."

With that, he melts into shadow.

The Hunters take a step towards me, and I keep my hands in the air. "Where did he go?"

"Away! It's just me! Thalia Grace! I—"

"Genvieve! Hildegard! Hold your fire!"

I blink at the names. Sometimes I forget that some Hunters are _old._

While the two sentries lower their weapons, a young girl with auburn hair approaches me. I'd seen her last in January, back when I was convinced it was her that sent my dream. Here we are again.

Artemis looks up at me. "Zoe Jackson," she says slowly. "Finally, you've come for us."

* * *

When we get to camp, Thalia doesn't look thrilled to see me. "You've made it," she says, looking distant. "Any later and you would've missed my lady."

I glance at Artemis, who nods. "Yearly summit. I have no excuse to miss it, and I must be off soon. But here you are."

"You knew . . ." My voice trails off. "You knew about me."

The goddess purses her lips. "I had my _suspicions_. Especially when you approached me about your dream. I didn't send it, I assure you, but I found it curious. I only know what I felt when you summoned my former lieutenant. I heard your words, and I felt your spirit."

"Woah, slow down," Thalia interrupts, glaring at me. "You _summoned _Zoë? Why on earth would you do that?"

"I needed to . . ." I glance at Artemis for an assist, but she just gives me a look that says _you're on your own_. "I needed to ask her blessing."

"For what?"

"My, uh . . ."

"Her name," Artemis explains, mercifully letting me off the hook. "You stand before Zoe Jackson."

Thalia looks sideways at me. "Really? Was it the Thai restaurant's waitress that gave you the idea?"

My cheeks burn red. Yeah, the waitress might have given me the _inspiration_, but the way she said it made me feel gross. Like I just saw the name and said, _that's mine_, and not what had _actually _happened, which was a month-long wrestling match in my head over whether or not I felt okay about using it. "Can we move past this?"

The Goddess of the Hunt looks confused. "A Thai restaurant?"

"Never mind that. Zoë told me to seek out a Huntress named Willow. She said you would know that means." I hastily add, "My lady."

Thalia furrows her brow. "Willow? She's one of our best trackers. Loner. Keeps to herself. She's in her tent right now. Why would Zoë say that? Zoë _Nightshade_, I mean." She turns to her godly patron. "My lady, do you have any idea?"

Artemis gives me a look that says: _yes, but Thalia doesn't need to know. S_he shakes her head. "Not the slightest, my lieutenant. Still, I trust she had her reasons. Will you lead our guest to Willow?"

The daughter of Zeus nods, still looking confused. "As you command, my lady."

"Good. Zoe Jackson, I shall likely be gone by the time you've concluded your business with Willow. You have an open invitation to stay for the evening, should you be so inclined."

I think about Nico trudging back to town, miserable, wanting me back as quickly as possible. "I'm honored, my lady. But I don't think I'll be staying."

She and Thalia share a look before my cousin slaps me on the back. "Come on then, _Zoe_," she says. "Willow awaits."

Our walk across camp is an unpleasant one. I'm sure that word has gotten out around camp about who I am—who I _really _am—and I'm getting the cold shoulder. Wouldn't be any different if I was a man, I guess, but still, it hurts to see the eyes on my back.

"Some of our girls have been with us for a thousand years," Thalia says as if she's reading my mind. "They distrust _anyone_, and they've probably never met someone like you before."

I nod. "I guess it's understandable."

"You won't be here long," she grumbles, "and if anyone gives you crap, let me know. I'll set them straight."

I find myself smiling. "Thanks."

"Don't get all sentimental. C'mon."

She leads me into a smaller tent on the edge of camp, and inside, a Huntress is fletching arrows. "Willow?"

The girl looks to be about my age—definitely on the _older_ side, as far as Hunters go—but she doesn't look up from her work, so I can't get a good look at her. "Lieutenant." Her voice is forceful, Southern-accented.

"Someone is here to speak with you," Thalia says. She looks to me, flailing for an explanation.

Willow finally looks up. Her skin is pale, freckly. Her hair is stringy, chestnut brown, reaching her waist. Her nimble fingers continue working away at her arrow. Compared to the rest of the Hunters, who are generally tiny, she must be the biggest of the bunch. "Who's someone?"

Thalia glances at me, like, _go on_. I clear my throat. "Zoe Jackson," I say, the words nearly catching in my throat. "I, uh. I spent some time here some years ago. When my name _wasn't _Zoe."

It clicks for her, and she's nodding. "You're Poseidon's kid. Saved the world twice?"

I nod.

"I remember you from the Battle of Manhattan." She points at the chair across from her. "Sit down."

I share a glance with Thalia, who merely shrugs. "Seeya!" she says, disappearing behind the flap of the tent.

I awkwardly slink into the chair across from the Huntress, finally getting a good look at her. Even though it's cold outside, the tent is enchanted to be warm, so her silver top is sleeveless. Her arms are muscular, scarred, and covered in sweat (I know it might sound weird, but I thought that was kind of pretty). "So," she says. "You came for me. I reckon Artemis sent you to me, more like."

I nod. "Yeah. Well, Zoë Nightshade, really, but that's a long story."

She looked up at me, eyes wide. "You spoke to the old lieutenant?"

I explain the summoning to her, how I had a friend who could do this sort of thing. At this point, I saw no reason to lie to her: I tell her I asked for Zoë's blessing.

"You, uh, know what it means to be transgender, right?"

Willow snorts. "In my time, that word didn't exist."

My eyebrows shoot up in surprise. "What was _your time_, then?"

The pained expression she makes feel bad for asking, but she talks anyway. "Born in 1866. Dirt poor in the Tennessee River Valley. Mortal, no godly ancestors to speak of. When I was fifteen, I joined the Army, got sent out west to fight in the Indian Wars."

"I'm not a history person, but isn't that before women were allowed in the Army? Did you disguise yourself as a man?"

She scoffs. "In a way, I suppose. Anyway, I did some things in the Army I ain't proud of. Deserted because I wasn't proud of 'em. Wandered for a spell. Then Artemis found me and gave me her blessin'." She sets a fully-fletched arrow onto the pile on her little table. "I don't like to talk about the Army. But still: my lady found me."

"You didn't explain how you were able to join the Army when you were—"

Willow shakes her head and rolls her eyes. "I'm _like you. _Don't you see it?"

It dawns on me all of a sudden. A million things flood my head in one instant; maybe I could say something like _I commend your bravery for being yourself in a time where that could get you killed. _Or maybe _I would've had no idea if you hadn't said anything. _Instead, I say: "Wha?!"

She rolls her eyes again. "You shocked?"

"A little bit?" I feel kind of gross for doing it, but I scan my eyes over Willow, trying to see if there was some way I _possibly _could've known. Her shoulders were a bit wider than typical, but plenty of other girls were just as wide and muscular. Her jaw was a _bit _stronger than usual, but again, I'd just read her as a badass Tennessee shitkicker who was comfortable in her skin.

I mean, she clearly _is _that last thing. But still.

"Back in my day, it was harder. To be a girl like us. None of the advantages you have nowadays. No hormones to take, no _nothin'_." She set her jaw. "After I deserted, I started wearin' dresses, told people to call me _Willow_. No one did. The only way to stay alive would've been sex work, but I didn't want that. If Artemis hadn't found me . . ." She shakes her head.

"I'm sorry," I say, my voice feeling weak.

"There were more of us in the Hunt back then," she says. "When I joined, there were two others. Nice girls. Demigods, even! Daughter of Apollo and a daughter of Athena, I reckon they were, though my memory ain't great. They made the mistake of fallin' in love with each other, got themselves banished. Not sure what happened to 'em. Now it's just me. And possibly you, if you want it. You _are _a maiden, right?"

I cough. "How are we defining _maiden_?"

She squints at me. "Rules can be flexible, especially for girls like us. You'd have to swear off romance for the rest of your days, but"—she shrugs—"that's really not a big deal. I haven't wavered for a moment."

She starts a new arrow, and my heart pounds. "Do the other Hunters know about you?"

"Only a handful," she says. "Old-timers. Hildegard, she's been around since the Saxon days in England. A few others. Our new lieutenant doesn't. Zoë . . ." She shakes her head, as though she's shaking loose an errant thought. "She knew. And here you show up with her name, hand-chosen by the Goddess of the Hunt."

I shake my head. "I don't want to join."

Willow sets down her arrow. "Stand up."

I nervously follow her command, and she stands across from me. "Take off your jacket," she barks. Even though she's a head shorter than me, she's still scary, so I comply.

After I do it, she looks at me, examining my body. "You don't need me to point out the little things," she says, "because I'm guessin' they keep you up at night, like they did me. But, Zoe Jackson: you're body's straight and stiff as a rail line. Hormones can only do so much about that."

I chew on the inside of my cheek. "And?"

"The Blessin' of Artemis," she says, barely above a whisper. She gestures to her body, which looks like any other girl our age. My eyes go wide. "Hormone therapy didn't exist in my time," she explains. "This is the Blessin' of Artemis. She conferred it onto me when I joined the Hunt, and that feelin' that kept me up at night went away."

"Does it . . . ?"

"It won't magically switch your chromosomes if that's what you're gettin' at. Won't zap your pecker off." I redden at the notion. Willow's eyes, again, move over my body. "But it's the only reason I ain't ever hurt myself. This could happen to you."

"This is why you joined the Hunt?" I ask softly.

"It was among the reasons," she says. "I fancied boys. In my time, that was never goin' to happen. Reckoned I'd be dead soon anyway. Had nothin' to lose. And here, I found sisters. People who'd die for me, who respected me for being Willow, a damn good tracker."

I open my mouth, but no words came out.

"No one in your old life will ever _really _understand you," she says. She's a step away from me now, practically radiating warmth. "They might even try, but they just can't. I seen it too many times. You'll have sisters here."

_Maybe she's_ _right. _I think about Annabeth, who I knew wanted a _man_, wanted _children_. She deserved those things. My friends were ready to move on, get on with their lives. Everyone was living their lives in California except for me, and even Nico at Camp Half-Blood had Will to keep him company. I'm alone.

Might be easier to vanish without a trace. Thalia would probably keep a secret if I asked her to.

I look Willow in the eyes. "I'll consider it."

"Good!" She gestures to her bedroll. "You gonna stay with us tonight? Could always drag another sleeping bag in here."

"I'm not sure," I admit, shifting in my seat. I could always IM Nico and tell him to leave me here. "I need to go back to my family, though, at least for a little while. I need to figure some things out."

"Well," she says. "Before I nod off, I wanted to give you something."

She fishes a key out of her pocket and walks over to a chest pushed up against the canvas of the tent. "Just something to remember me by, while you consider things," she explains. The chest opens with a _creak_, and she gingerly withdraws a blue jacket. My heart pounds. "I wore this in the Army," she says. "When I joined the Hunt, I was permitted to keep it. It's got a bit of the blessin' in it. It'll change form to whatever you need it to, like our parkas. I want to give it to you. Just don't machine wash it. Learned that the hard way."

I'm speechless as she gingerly hands me the jacket. "I had a dream . . ." I say slowly. "I had a dream that I was wearing this. Months ago."

She smiles. "Told you: it's meant to be."

I slip Willow's jacket on, barely noticing when it transforms from an old-fashioned Army overcoat into a blue bomber jacket. _Fashionable. _Piper would be proud. "I don't know what to say."

She wraps me a hug and whispers in my ear: "Say the oath. Give it to the lieutenant. Stay here and be my sister."

* * *

I leave the tent in a minor daze and get immediately ambushed by Thalia.

"Don't do it," she says.

I bite my lip. I refuse to spill Willow's secret, but I say: "The Blessing of Artemis, Thalia."

She sighs and rubs her temples. "Look. You're an adult who can make her own decisions, so I'm not going to tell you what to do. I'd love you as a sister, even though we'd have to, you know, _train you how to hunt_—"

"I could learn!" I argue.

"I said I won't tell you what to do, and I _won't_. But I think you're being stupid right now."

"You can't understand," I reply, feeling anger grow inside me. "You don't know what that blessing would mean for me. You don't know what it feels like to look in the mirror and not recognize the person you see."

She throws up her hands in surrender. "You're right! I _don't _know what that feels like, and I'm sorry you have to go through this. But I know _you_. I know what kind of person you are. I saw you turn green when you thought Annabeth would join the Hunt. Styx, I've seen you turn down immortality before, Jackson! For _her_."

I fiddle with the buttons on my jacket. "You don't understand how hard it is to be transgender in the mortal world. I have to track down _literally everyone _I know and tell them who I am. Do you know how exhausting that is? Do you know how much it hurts to get that blank look, hear _wow, I never would've guessed? _It hurts me every single time."

"I get that, but how's it gone for you so far? Who have you told and how've they reacted?"

I rattle off the handful of names and pause. Piper, sweet as she was, not being able to keep a basic promise. Jason, whose first instinct was to gawk at me. Mom—gods, _Mom_—would have to lose her only son. I couldn't imagine sitting down with her and explaining what was up with me, even if I knew she'd accept me.

I shake my head. "Annabeth didn't exactly take the news well."

"She loves _you_," Thalia insists, jabbing me again. "Not . . . the son of Poseidon. You. Your soul. She _will _come around. I know her better than anyone else, even you. She's like a little sister to me."

I scowl. _"She _wants space right now while she can decide whether or not I'm worth keeping around."

"She's the daughter of Athena! This is just how she operates. You should know that by now."

I shake my head, biting my lip. "She's straight, Thalia. She won't want . . ." I shake my head. "She wants a man. Not me. We've talked about kids, and if I went on hormones, I won't be able to give her that. She deserves better. It'd be better if I was permanently out of the picture . . . she'd be happier."

The daughter of Zeus grabs me by my sleeve. "When you told me you were transgender, I was surprised. Now I'm not. You're acting like a spoiled little girl right now, one who's refusing to listen to sense."

"Fuck off, Thalia."

"No, _you _fuck off," she says, jabbing me in the chest with her finger. "This is serious, not something you do on a _whim_. Don't throw your friends and family away for only—"

"_You _joined the Hunt on a whim!"

"And I haven't regretted it for a millisecond! But I _know you. _You take that oath, three weeks later, you're pining for Annabeth like the lovesick idiot you are. Artemis gets a whiff of that, and she'll banish you, probably even curse you. Turn you into a salamander. Or if it happens while we're still on Fidalgo Island, into a cluster of foxgloves. Does being a cluster of foxgloves sounds nice to you?"

I glare at her.

"Didn't think so!"

"You don't get to decide for me," I say slowly.

"I'm _not_. I'm just begging you to reconsider. See if you can make it work, please."

Before I can process what's happening, she's got me by the wrist. Her other hand goes to my neck, and I'm too stunned to react. "You are _banished_," she hisses.

Everything goes black.

* * *

Suddenly, I'm standing on the edge of a highway. I feel the rain in my hair.

It takes me a second to get my bearings, but I eventually realize I'm still on Fidalgo Island. The sign next to me says _WA-20. _A few cars race crawl up and down the soggy two-lane.

_Banished_, huh? And now I have no idea where I am. I pull up the hood of Willow's jacket and shiver. Now there's _no _place for me. I couldn't go back down to California to see my friends; I didn't want to go east and face Mom or Paul.

I stick out my thumb and see if anyone will stop for me. After I wait ten minutes, a pickup truck pulls over, rumbling to a stop.

The driver rolls down his window. He's scruffy, older, but wears a smile. "Need a hand, sir?"

I try not to let that sting. "Where you headed?"

"Missoula. Clean through the night, no stops."

I shrug. _Missoula_. "Sounds good to me."

"You got a name?"

I pause, considering my options. My birth name wouldn't come out of my mouth and saying _Zoe _exponentially increases the chances of this guy being gross to me, so I bite my lip. "Hunter," I decide on.

He shrugs. "Name's Davey. Hop on in, Hunter."

When I settle into his car full of cigarette butts, beer cans, and other assorted trash, I try and forget who I am, at least for a night.

* * *

**If you're frustrated with Zoe right now: don't worry, I wanted to strangle her in parts of this chapter too. She's in an extremely difficult place in her self-discovery at the moment, and I wanted to be honest about the ways in which people deal with the social pressure of coming out/transitioning. Because she's a demigod, the stakes are naturally going to be higher.**

**I hope everyone liked Willow! When I first wanted to write a trans story set in the Riordanverse, I created her and wanted to tell her story, along with the two other trans Hunters she mentions. I decided against writing that story, but I still knew she'd have to make an appearance here. Even if I think she's giving Zoe bad advice, it makes sense given her history and perspective.**

**Anyway! Leave a review if you loved or hated it. See you tomorrow.**


	5. V: Whitefish, Montana

**Hey gang, real quick before this gets going: Thursday's update didn't cause the story to refresh on the Percy Jackson page for some reason (nor did the story's "latest update" date change), so you might've missed Chapter IV. If you did, make sure you go back and read it. I fear that this happened because I'm uploading daily, so I'm switching to every-other-day for the last two chapters after this.**

**Anyway! On with the fic.**

* * *

_**V: Whitefish, Montana**_

"Enough of this, Zoe Jackson."

Again, it's a dream. Banks of the River Seine (I looked it up!), Eiffel Tower in the distance, sitting at a cafe. Now I remember the spot; this was roughly where I took Annabeth on our one-month anniversary, courtesy of Hermes.

The Goddess of Love gives me a smile that bores a hole in my brain. She always succeeds at making me feel stupid.

"Why am I here?" I ask exasperatedly.

"I know why you're doing this," Aphrodite says with a rehearsed sigh. "You're running away from the boy you used to be, from the life you used to have. It's ever so _dramatic_, but I'm quite tired of it already."

"I was never a boy," I say, gritting my teeth. "I never wanted to be _him_."

"Semantics! Regardless, I'm _bored_. You can't do this forever, you know! Your situation is untenable, you're nearly out of mortal money. I'll pull some strings to get you back on track if you can't manage it yourself."

"What happened to gods not interfering with mortal affairs?"

She laughs. "I've always taken special care of you, my dear. Now, wake up. Face your day."

* * *

I snap awake to the sound of a bang on the door.

"Wake up, sleeping beauty," comes that gruff voice I've come to know so well. "Shift change in half an hour. Usual deal."

The wooden bench in the Flathead National Forest Visitor's Center that I'd been sleeping on for a week wasn't the _best _for my back, which is something I note every morning when I stretch and can hear everything _crack_. I shake the sleep out of my head, fold up the spare towel that I'd scavenged for use as a blanket, and quickly change. _Thank the gods for Piper_, I think dryly. I slip on Willow's jacket and toss my duffel bag over my shoulder.

When I open up the door, Robin, the usual nighttime clerk/security guard, is squinting at me. "Two weeks of this now," he says slowly. He's an older guy, at least sixty, who likes to act prickly and dickish sometimes. "I don't know how much longer I can keep this going."

When I showed up at the visitor's center on the night of Christmas, I was freezing, reeked of BO, and looked like I'd been through the trash compactor. I said I needed a place to stay. Robin, big softy that he is, let me sleep in the coffee lounge that's usually locked up at night if I cleaned the toilets for him. At four-thirty in the morning, right before his replacement came in, he'd wake me up, tell me to get the hell out. He'd even let me use the shower, occasionally, whenever decency struck him.

Today's January 10th. So Robin had been right: this _was _going on a bit too long.

"I have nowhere else to go," I say weakly. That's _almost _true. I get dozens of Iris Messages a day, people trying to call me, figure out where I am. My bed was waiting for me in New York, and if I showed up in Los Angeles or the Bay Area, people would take me in. I just couldn't bear to see them.

Robin threw up his hands. "I didn't think this would be a _permanent _situation, is all! Plus, I start vacation today. Five entire days off in a row. If you show up around here tonight and you tip Larry off, we're _both _dead."

_Shit_. I grind my teeth. I figured this was coming eventually. I remember Aphrodite: _I'll pull some strings to get you back on track_. Have I mentioned how much I hate Piper's mom? "Okay. Let me, uh, use the bathroom."

I push open the door to the women's room and get out my bag of makeup. I don't do this _every _day, but today, when I know I need to head into town, every bit helps. After I'm done, Robin's glowering again.

"You know, Hunter, if you didn't insist on doing . . ." He gestures at my face. "You know, all of that, you'd probably have somewhere to crash. Just saying."

For some reason, out of all the times he's said something rude to me for wearing women's clothes, _that _hurt the most. "Gee. I never thought of that."

"Just pointing out the obvious!" he cries.

"Well, you'll never see me again, so you don't have to worry about it!" I grab the handle on the door and turn to him. "I lied about my name, by the way. It's Zoe."

I storm out of the visitor's center into the freezing air of Montana in January. Willow's jacket becomes a blue parka, nice and warm, which almost makes up for the fact that I'm wearing mesh sneakers in six inches of snow. I can will myself to stay dry, but I can't will my feet to stay _warm_.

Dawn will be here soon. I begin the trek into town.

* * *

The highway's lonely at dawn, but I stick out my thumb whenever someone passes me by. Finally, a sedan pulls over and two people—a man and a woman, probably in their thirties, probably a couple—squint at me through the passenger's side window.

"Where're you headed?" I ask weakly.

"Canadian border," the woman says, squinting at me. "Are you a guy or a girl or what?"

I bite my tongue, trying to remember they're mortals. "Whitefish is just a few miles up the road. That's where I need to go."

The two of them share a glance. "What's your name?"

The name _Hunter _sits at the tip of my tongue, which is what I've been telling most people since I started running. For some reason, I can't bring myself to say it. "Zoe," I say, gritting my teeth.

"So you're a t—?"

I don't want to relay the word that the man says, but it's six letters long, starts with _t _and ends with _y._ You probably know the one. It's a word I've grown to despise, one that makes me feel sick. I take a deep breath and remind myself: _they're __mortals_.

I put my hood up and decide to walk away, considering this conversation to be over. "Hey!" comes the voice of a woman.

Stupidly, I turn around, thinking that she might apologize, but instead, I turn just in time to see a coffee cup hurtling towards me. I can't move fast enough to dodge it, but I _am _able to keep my clothes dry when the cup smacks me in the chest and lukewarm coffee spills down the front of me.

"Assholes!" I cry at them as they speed away. For a second, I consider chasing after them and teaching them a few manners, but their car is gone. _Mortals_. All I can do is take a deep breath and continue towards town.

* * *

Whitefish was a nice enough little place. Ski town, busy in the current season. I wander the streets for a while, get called _freak_ by someone smoking a cigarette outside of the Burger King, and then I decide I need some _real _food, not something that comes out of the visitor's center vending machine. I could figure out where I'm staying tonight later.

I settle on a sleepy little diner with an anthropomorphic snowflake on the sign. _Lakeside Grille_. It's half-a-mile from the lake, which is pretty funny. I head on in.

I seat myself, keeping my head down. _Stay out of trouble, stay out of the way_. It'd been three days since I last came across a monster, but I didn't want to chance it. I wanted to avoid attention if I could help it, even from the mortals. It was sleepy in here, just a few people who were probably regulars. I'm happy to mind my own business in the booth.

An older waitress who smells like cigarettes smiles at me. Her nametag says _Rhonda_. "Morning, miss," she says.

I feel fuzzy from getting read properly. "Morning."

"Could I get you anything to drink, sweetheart?"

I order tapwater. I'm down to twenty-two dollars in mortal money, so I can't afford to be extravagant. She scribbles on her little pad. "I'm about to go on a smoke break, so Malcolm will swing by with your water and take your order."

"Thanks."

I drum my fingers on the linoleum of the table. The radio's tuned to some local country station, and even though I'm _definitely _not a country fan, it calms me down. I feel good until I get my first Iris Message of the day.

_"Please insert one drachma to receive this_ _message," _comes her angelic voice. A few stray customers look at me, the Mist probably making them think that I'd left my phone's ringer on the loudest setting possible.

In the kitchen, I think I hear something _crash_. I wonder if the cook back there took extra offense to whatever ringtone he heard. I don't think much of it until I hear someone mutter "Oh, Styx," which, in a diner full of mortals, is bound to get my attention.

I look up and feel my stomach backflip. Standing a few feet away from me, in his Lakeside Grille polo shirt with a _Malcolm _nametag, stands a familiar figure. Physically fit, brown hair, trademark grey eyes. Malcolm Pace, son of Athena. "You . . ." His eyes are wide. "Oh my gods, I can't believe—"

My body moves on its own. Before I know what I'm doing, my duffel bag is over my shoulder and I'm out the door, moving as fast as I can. "Hey!" comes Malcolm's voice. "_Hey!_"

I'm halfway down the street when he grabs my arm, spinning me around. "Let me be, Malcolm," I growl.

He flinches a bit. I'm a little weak right now on account of two weeks of vending machine food, but I didn't have much trouble against those _dracenae _that decided to attack me in the woods on New Year's Eve. He probably remembers me from the Battle of Manhattan, literally invincible. He doesn't want to fight me. "_Everyone _is looking for you right now," he says, voice shaky. "Annabeth's sent me three IMs, begging me to keep an eye out."

"I didn't want to be found."

"Why?!"

I look over his shoulder, up at the distant mountains. "I needed some time on my own."

"So you vanished without a trace? Without telling anyone?"

It dawns on me, standing there in the cold, that if everyone was looking for me . . . "She told you, didn't she? About me?" I ask in a small voice.

Malcolm hesitates, then nods. My heart hits the floor when I realize it couldn't have _just _been Malcolm she told. "Hey, listen. It doesn't matter."

"It matters a lot _to me_, but—"

"I know! That's not what I meant. I mean, you're still the person who saved the world. You're still the person who's great to my sister."

I pick at a button on my jacket and say nothing.

"Now, listen. I'm just wearing a polo shirt, and it's ten degrees out here. I'd appreciate it if we could take this inside."

I glare into the son of Athena's grey eyes, but he gives it right back to me. I curse under my breath. "Just don't immediately message Annabeth," I say.

He raises his hands in surrender. "Sure! Just, please. I'm freezing and I need to get back to work."

* * *

Half-an-hour later, I'm scarfing down eggs and toast (I was assured it would be on the house, which I appreciated) while Malcolm watches me from across the table, just starting his break.

"Why on earth are you in _Whitefish_, of all places?" he asks, scratching his scalp.

"Why're you?"

"I _grew up _here."

"Oh." Pretty good reason, I concede. I mop up more egg yolk with my toast, savoring the taste of _real food_. "I just kinda ended up here. Hitchhiked until I got here."

"Styx, Jackson," he says, shaking his head. I note he's avoiding any of the potential first names he could use for me, which irritates me a bit. Annabeth probably told him my name. "Where have you been staying?"

"At this visitor's center up near the forest since Christmas," I say, and it's only when Malcolm gives me a withering look do I realize I was _actually _saying: _I've been homeless for a couple of weeks. _"Don't snitch on the clerk there. He's . . . an okay guy."

He shakes his head. "I don't plan on it."

"Good."

"But that's over with," he says. "If you're staying in town tonight, you're coming home with me. It's just my dad and my little brother—well, half-brother, he's mortal. They won't bother you."

I take a bite of my home fries and consider that. I didn't know Malcolm too well, but he's tight with Annabeth, which concerns me. I don't need to see _her_, not yet. "You won't tell anyone?"

"I just want to make sure you're okay. A Hero of Olympus shouldn't be sleeping in a visitor's center, and demigods take care of their own."

I nod, giving him a smile. "That's, uh. I appreciate that, Malcolm."

* * *

After the sun goes down, I'm sitting in Malcolm's living room. The house is this giant old thing to the west of town, standing alone for a mile in every direction. The walls are lined with hunting trophies, photographs of nature, fancy antique guns on racks. It's a very _Montana _aesthetic, is what I'm saying.

Malcolm hands me a mug of hot chocolate. "Thanks," I say, shifting on the couch. In the warmth of the house, I'd opted for a skirt and leggings, since that seemed comfortable. Early review of this outfit: definitely cozy, but not something I want to wear all the time. Jeans are just too practical to _not _wear them in most situations.

"Your stuff's in the wash," he says. "Except for the jacket, like you said."

I smile at him. "Thanks, man."

"Dad should be home soon."

Malcolm's little brother, Corey, had barely given me a second glance when he got home from his friend's house, which was pretty great. Last thing I needed was a middle-schooler asking me why I look the way I do. "And your dad's cool with me sleeping on your couch?"

Malcolm shrugs. "Usually, when it comes to godly business, he'll just accept whatever I tell him. He's pretty indifferent about these things."

I look around at the room again and shake my head. "No offense, but this doesn't strike me as the living room of someone who had a kid with Athena."

He frowns. "I mean, morals of hunting aside, my dad's sharp as celestial bronze. He's kind of a genius about these things."

I sip on my hot cocoa and squint at the TV, which is tuned to local news. A story about a new chain restaurant that just opened up down in Kalispell, lines around the block. Montana's weird. "You still in high school?"

He nods. "Senior. Working at the diner to save money for college."

"You're not gonna do New Rome?"

He scoffs. "Absolutely not. I was thinking Washington, maybe. I want to be out in the mortal world."

"I get you."

Just then, the door creaks open, and in steps a bear of a man in a giant camouflage coat. While he's kicking off his boots, he squints at me, and a surge of anxiety shoots through me. "No bringing girls here unsupervised, Malcolm Alexander Pace! We've had this conversation before."

While Malcolm blushes so hard that I think he might explode, I have to stifle a laugh. "My name's Zoe Jackson, sir. I'm a demigod. I'm—"

"She's dating my half-sister, Annabeth, I've told you about them before," Malcolm explains, scratching at his hair. "She's in town and needs a place to crash for the night. Godly business."

Mr. Pace assesses me, and I feel like a deer in the sight of his rifle. He runs a hand through his scraggly brown beard. "Well, go ahead, then. Don't let me interrupt you."

He shuffles off upstairs, and once he's gone, I can't contain my laughter. "'No bringing girls here unsupervised, Malcolm Alexander Pace!'" I say, trying to imitate his father's growly voice as best as I can.

"Oh, stop."

"Can you grow a beard like that? Because holy crap, you _should _be doing that if you can."

He rolls his eyes. "Don't make me regret letting you stay here."

* * *

"So, yeah. Like. It's a really hard thing to describe," I say, words pouring out of me now. I'm on my fourth hot chocolate. We've been talking for hours. "Like, the process of realizing it. It kinda happened in steps."

Malcolm nods. He's been a great audience. "I imagine it must be weird."

"I'm sure you've looked at parts of your body and wanted them to be _different_ before. But, like . . ." As usual, the words escape me. "Like, for a few months in the summer, I couldn't even get out of bed."

"Hades," he mutters.

"Not fun," I agree. "But, you know. It's gotten better."

"You should know, uh. Everyone's been talking these past few weeks, not even just Annabeth and I. I've gotten messages from half the demigods I know, and everyone's worried about you."

I tap my nails against the ceramic. "My secret's out with everyone?"

Malcolm hesitates. "I don't know if that's the case for sure. But I've spoken to Chiron. Clarisse called me, she's still down in Arizona with Chris Rodriguez. The old guard, you know? From the Titan days?"

I shudder. That was only two-years-and-change ago, but it feels like a lifetime. "And?"

"Everyone's been, you know, at least that I've seen, respectful. Of you. And your new situation."

I sigh. I'm not _thrilled _that the word's out there now, because it wasn't exactly on my terms. _You ran away, idiot_, _'course they're gonna talk_, says the part of my brain that's mostly been quiet lately. I just hope it hasn't gotten to my mom yet.

I think about the Hunters, I think about Willow. For the past couple weeks I've been tempted to message Thalia again, ask her to tell me where the Hunt is. I'm still pretty miffed at her for banishing me, but if Artemis was there I was certain they'd let me stay, let me take the oath if I wanted.

The hardest part of the last few weeks has _definitely _been admitting to myself that the daughter of Zeus had been right.

"So are you gonna go back home?" Malcolm asks delicately.

I wiggle on the couch, leaning into a throw pillow. "I don't know," I admit. "Maybe."

"And Annabeth . . ?"

I avoid his eyes and glare at the TV instead. "We both need some time to think," I say. "I love her. She's the best thing that ever happened to me. But . . . distance, right now."

"She's worried sick about you," the son of Athena says. "Just, you know. Thought I'd remind you of that."

"Gee, thanks. That makes me feel great."

"I'm not trying to guilt you! She cares about you a lot, is all I'm saying."

I'm still staring off into space. "I know. I don't really want to talk about this."

There's maybe a minute of silence before I hear my host crack his back and rise to his feet. "I have school tomorrow," he explains. "I better turn in. You've got a blanket, you've got a pillow. Obviously, you can do whatever you want, but you're welcome to stay here another night if you need it.

I manage a smile. "Thanks, Malcolm."

"Don't mention it."

* * *

After a lazy day spent on Malcolm's couch, his brother, Corey, is the first to get home.

"You're friends with Malcolm?" he asks, squinting at me. "He told me your name is Zoe. You're tall, and your voice is weird."

The kid is maybe ten, with a brown mohawk and a toothy grin. Unlike Malcolm, his eyes are dark brown, and he speaks quickly, bluntly, without thinking about whether or not he's hurting people.

I nod, try and smile. Not too long ago, I _was _a jerk of a ten-year-old too. "Yeah. I'm, uh. Pretty tall, I guess."

Corey nods, like it's obvious. "He said you were dating one of his sisters. But you're a _girl_."

I doubt his older brother told him about the gods, but at least he seems to know Malcolm has step-siblings. I decide not to ask him about it. "Uh, yeah."

"You're weird-looking."

_Deep breath. _"You know how some people, they're, like, they're born as a boy or a girl and then they realize they're the other thing on the inside?"

That's an overly simple and not _really _correct explanation for who I am, but I'm pitching to a ten-year-old. He shrugs. "Yeah."

"I'm like that."

"Oh. I didn't know Malcolm had a friend like you."

"He does. Like I said, I'm . . ." I don't know if I'm _dating _Annabeth at the moment, so I try not to say those words. "I'm close to his half-sister."

He shrugs again. "That's cool, I guess."

I tap my foot against the floor, hoping to avoid any weird questions he might have. "Don't you have homework to do or something?"

He scoffs. "You think I do _homework? _I'm in _fifth grade _now, I'm too cool for that."

"Smart man," I say with a smile. "Never do homework. Your brother Malcolm, he'll tell you to study and stuff. Ignore him, he's a massive nerd."

Corey giggles. "You're cool."

This time, _I _nod like it's obvious. "Heck yeah, I'm cool."

"Wanna play _SpaceGuns _with me? I wanna do split-screen but Greg from school can't come over today, Dad won't let him. You can pick the map. Are you good at video games? Girls usually suck at video games."

"Oh, now you're _dead_," I say, grinning. "I'll wipe the floor with you. You are _on._"

* * *

I try and smile. _I _was once a middle-school boy, I try

The next night, after dinner (Mr. Pace can make a _wicked _venison stew), Malcolm heads outside to see me off.

"Home, then?" he asks.

I give him a slight nod. "Mom's apartment."

"That situation gonna be okay?"

"We're gonna see, I guess."

"Corey's gonna miss his gaming buddy."

I laugh. "Tell him I'll try and swing by some time. And that he needs to get _way _better at _SpaceGuns_."

I put two fingers in my mouth and whistle, the sound cracking through the air. Within a few seconds, Mrs. O'Leary comes bounding out of the nearby woods and almost knocks me flat. "I missed you too, girl," I say, scratching her behind the ears.

Malcolm stares. "Sometimes I forget that you somehow have a pet hellhound. Where does she go when you aren't with her?"

I shrug. "She's a free spirit, not really a _pet_. Plus, there's not nearly enough room in the apartment for her."

"I imagine."

I hop onto her back, duffel bag over my shoulder. "Hey, uh. Malcolm. I really can't thank you enough. For everything."

"Don't worry about it. Before you go, I wanted to say, uh. When I did your laundry, I found a Hunters of Artemis brochure in your jeans pocket."

My eyes are trained on the trees. "Yep."

"Just think about Annabeth, that's all."

Mrs. O'Leary's getting fidgety, so I try and soothe her with a few pats. "After I leave," I say, "Wait, like, an hour, maybe. Send her an Iris Message. Tell her I'm okay, that I'm going to New York, and that I need more time before we talk again."

He slowly nods. "I can do that."

"Thanks again."

* * *

Mrs. O'Leary bounds off into the shadows, and before I know it, I'm banging on the door to my apartment. My mom opens the door, eyes going wide.

"We need to talk, Mom."

* * *

**This was _another _hard chapter to write. I rewrote it, like, four times (took some scenes out, added some in), but here it is! I hope it doesn't feel too hodge-podgy, but that's how it goes sometimes.**

**As always, I appreciate every review I get, so consider leaving one! Have a nice day.**


	6. VI: Grey Eyes, Green Eyes

**_VI: Grey Eyes, Green Eyes_**

"Zoe," comes the voice of Melissa, "I think you zoned out on me."

I blink. "Sorry. It's the ADHD."

My therapist gives me a weak smile. "That's okay. You've been going through a lot lately, I understand."

The calendar on her desk says _March 20th_. More than two months since I got back home. "You could say that."

"So, after our previous sessions, I'm prepared to diagnose you with gender dysphoria, officially," she says. This is my sixth appointment here, in this tiny little office in Bed-Stuy. Melissa _loves _those motivational posters where a kid is standing on the beach, arms outstretched, with captions that say some goofy shit like _Perseverance. _Her office is practically wallpapered in them.

I can't take my eyes off a poster with a friendly-looking mountain and word _Authenticity. _I nod. I wasn't sure how soon I expected to be at this point, but it feels good to hear her say those words. "Okay," I say in a bit of a daze.

"And . . ." She checks her notes. "You've been out at home for . . . ?"

"Uh. I've been full time for six weeks now."

She nods, and while she's going through her notes, I pick at my bra strap. While I'd followed Piper's basic advice for most things, I was kinda on my own in this department. I'd figured out my band size, but, you know, obviously, without hormones or the Blessing of Artemis, I didn't have any growth yet. I was wearing inserts, though, which helped me pass a little better. Back to the point: I was picking at the strap because I was very much _not _used to wearing it yet and it was digging into my skin.

"Some other offices would have you live for longer before beginning hormone replacement therapy. A 'lived experience,' it's called. To make sure patients don't have any trouble transitioning, try a minimize the number of patients who begin on hormones and then decide to de-transition. That time period might be as little as a few months or a full year, depending on who's doing the diagnosing and who the patient is."

I nod, trying to process all of that.

"I'm prepared to refer you to an endocrinologist right now, however," she says, smiling, "as since we've begun talking, you've been stable and shown consistent progress. Now, I want to give you a full breakdown of the effects before we go any further."

"Okay," I say, a bit dazed. I did _not _expect this to happen so quickly, but I'm certain-beyond-certain that this is what I want.

"Within one-to-three months on estradiol and spironolactone, you'll notice a few effects. The first will be breast sensitivity. It'll feel like you have sensitive little balls under your nipples, and after a couple of months, they'll get puffier. You'll see a general decrease in muscle mass after that, by the end of three months, you'll notice your body fat begin to move from your torso to . . . more typically feminine places to gather fat. Your face should round out because of that. Most importantly, though: within a month, you'll notice a decrease in erections, sperm count, and sex drive. I've asked you this before, but: do you think you want to have biological children?"

I open my mouth and close it again. "I don't know," I admit.

"I would recommend finding a sperm bank, then, before you begin hormones. Within a couple of months, you'll likely become infertile, and there's no guarantee that would change if you de-transitioned. After a year, infertility is almost always irreversible."

My mouth feels dry as I nod. "Okay."

"Longer-term effects are softer skin—some of my patients tell me that things will _feel _differently when they touch them. Any balding you're undergoing will stop, and possibly be reversed. Body hair growth will slow down. Breast growth is the longest-term thing there is; they've been known to develop for more five years or more before stopping. It varies patient to patient. That's something you'll have to figure out on the fly."

For a few seconds, I sit there in silence, trying to absorb everything she's said. "I want to stress risk of infertility again," she says. "'Do you want to have biological children?' is a question you're gonna get tired of real quick if you decide you want to move forward. You'll hear it from your endocrinologist, too."

I want to say: _I'm already tired of it_. "I understand."

"Also, a few things it _won't _do: it won't change your voice, so you'd have to undergo voice training if you wanted to sound more feminine. It can't change your bone structure, with the exception of widening your hips. So you won't become shorter, your shoulders won't become narrower, and so on."

I sigh. My shoulders and my height are two of the things I dislike the most, and they're the two things I'm stuck with. "I understand."

"The next step for you would be seeing an endocrinologist. I refer people to Dr. Keeler—he has an office up on the seventh floor, in this same building. He could write you a prescription for the hormones you need. I have a recommendation on file for you. I could send it down right now, and you'll get called back by his office at some point this week. They're pretty quick."

"That's good."

She examines me. "You look a bit pale."

"It's a lot to think about. I, uh. I hope it's okay that I'm a little nervous."

Melissa laughs. "I'd be worried if you _weren't _nervous. It's a big step."

"I want to do this, though," I say, keeping my voice level. "I'm ready."

"We could also wait for whenever you feel comfortable. If you want extra time to think it over, that's no problem at all. It's a big decision to make, even though I know you've been considering it for a while now."

Deep breath. "I'm sure."

* * *

It's a week later. After getting asked a hundred times if I want to have biological children by Dr. Keeler, I leave the building with a bloodwork request form and a prescription waiting for me at the Duane Reade near my mom's apartment. My head's spinning, and not just because I walked down seven flights of stairs.

I hear a throat clear behind me. "Seaweed Brain," she says, and my chest lights up.

I turn around, and there she is. Blonde curls cascading over her shoulders, denim jacket over a purple Camp Jupiter shirt (_when in New Rome_, I guess). The sun's in her eyes, so she squints at me, smiling just a little bit. "I hate Bed-Stuy," Annabeth complains. "Took me forever to find this place. I thought the cab driver was gonna strangle me if I had him drive around another block."

I'm staring at her, but I'm so surprised that I can't help it. "You're here. In New York."

"You're here, too, evidently." Her eyes sweep over me, from my head to my toes. I realize that this is the first time she's seen me since I've been out, and I go red. I cross my arms instinctively. "Your mom, uh, she told me you'd be here. I wanted to surprise you."

I nod slowly.

"She's been good to you?"

* * *

Estelle wailed in the nursery while Mom squeezed me in a hug.

"Honey, I am _so _sorry you felt like you couldn't tell us," she said, tears in her eyes.

"Seriously," Paul added. He'd been mostly quiet when I told him; reserved, supportive. "We're here for you, Per—" He shook his head. "Sorry. I'm sorry. Honest mistake. It'll take some time to iron it all out."

"I know," I said, my voice shaky. "I get it. As long as you try, that's what matters."

"I should probably go see Estelle," Paul says, slipping out the room to check on his crying daughter. Conveniently, it left my mom and I alone.

"What do you need from us?" Mom asked, finally pulling away. She grabbed by the shoulders, and, thankfully, she was smiling. "You're my . . . my child, and I love you, _always, _no matter. How can we make you more comfortable?"

I took a deep breath. "I know this is happening fast, but if you guys could start calling me Zoe, that would be amazing. And, uh. There's something else I need to do."

She looked at me with wide eyes. "Of course, what is it?"

"I need to see a therapist."

* * *

I find myself nodding. "She and Paul are trying their best," I say. "It's an ongoing thing. _Everything _is an ongoing thing now."

Annabeth nods. "I can't even imagine." She examines me from top the bottom again, which makes me feel self-conscious. "You look nice," she says softly, almost sounding sad. "We're matching. Denim jackets."

It's the end of March, but it's probably only fifty degrees. Willow's coat had taken the form of a fur-lined denim jacket, which I adjust the buttons on. Did you know that women's clothes have buttons and zippers on the _left _instead of the right? It's been driving me crazy.

Unfortunately, fiddling with my jacket won't get me out of this situation, and I'm not sure that I'm ready for this. "I don't mean to be a jerk, but—"

"I know, we agreed to distance," she says. She takes a few cautious steps towards me, as though she thinks I might dissolve into a flock of birds if she approaches too quickly. "I've been meaning to see you, though. Just to make sure you're doing okay."

I suck on my teeth and try not to make a face. "I'm doing pretty okay."

"I'm glad." She clears her throat. "Did you drive here?"

"Yeah, there's, uh, a parking ramp around the way. It's a real pain to drive, but there's no other easy way to get to Bed-Stuy from my mom's apartment. What time is it, by the way?"

"My watch says 10:34."

"Geez, I was in there for an hour-and-a-half," I grumble to myself. It felt as long. Half-an-hour in the waiting room, nearly as long a wait once my height and weight were taken. Dr. Keeler had been a nice enough guy, but still, I wasn't looking forward to my next appointment in July.

Annabeth looks at me sideways. "Your mom didn't say what business you have here."

"It's where I go for therapy. It's my endocrinologist's office, too, I guess."

"Oh." She twirls a lock of her hair with her finger, a classic Annabeth nervous tic. "Do you want to . . . ?"

"I have a few errands to run," I say. _Screw it_. If I'm not ready, this'll be where it all ends. "Do you wanna come along?"

She smiles broadly. "Love to."

* * *

Driving over the recently-repaired Williamsburg Bridge brings back all kinds of memories. "It's hard to think about," she says softly in the passenger's seat. "The bridge brings it all back. The battle. Kronos. Luke."

I nod. "I barely feel like I'm that person anymore. It all feels . . . distant to me, I guess. Like I can remember it, but it's all washed out."

She looks at me sideways. "You don't really _look _like that person anymore, so I have a hard time seeing you as . . ." I think she wants to say _him_, but can't decide whether or not that would offend me. "Is that weird that I said that? Was that rude?"

"Not really."

She looks a little relieved and takes it as her cue to continue. "You're different. In a lot of ways. More self-assured. More serious."

I furrow my brow. "Is that a compliment?"

"Obviously! You, uh, you look really cute, by the way. Piper gave you good advice, your eye makeup is _amazing._ You did that?"

"I did, thanks," I croak.

"The choppy, uneven bob is good for you. Really frames your face. Do you want to grow your hair out?"

I'm beet-red, which Annabeth thankfully doesn't comment on. Learning how to take compliments has been hard, and it's especially not easy to take them from my girlfriend (Ex-girlfriend? Girlfriend-on-pause?) who I have no idea how to talk to right now. "I don't know. I like it now, but I want to try growing it longer."

"You should. I think it'd look nice. I mean, like I said, you _already _look nice, but still."

Whenever I feel somewhat okay about myself, I think back to Willow: _Zoe Jackson, you're body's straight and stiff as a rail line. _Hormones would help, but they weren't magic. Unless I took the Blessing of Artemis, I'd always be long, lanky, disproportionate. My body was hard, masculine, probably unlovable. Annabeth's probably just trying to be nice, trying compliment to me so it'll hurt less when she inevitably breaks up with me.

"Is Malcolm doing alright?" I ask, trying to change the subject.

"Of course. He's _always _doing alright. I think you showing up like you did kind of freaked him out."

"Oh. I, uh. Tell him I'm sorry for that, then."

"You should make your way to Camp Half-Blood, you know," she says slowly, as though she doesn't want to freak me out. "Lots of people there want to see you. Chiron. Grover. Tyson. Rachel. Everyone else."

Gods, _Grover __and Tyson_. There are so many people I still need to talk to. "I'll go this summer, maybe," I reply. "I really miss the place, but . . ."

"I get it."

Annabeth and I moving around each other like medieval knights; heavily armored, slow, waiting for the perfect chance to strike. Both of us know how it used to be, but it's like neither of us can remember how to get there.

"So what errands are we running?" Annebeth asks.

"Well, _I'm _running them, mostly." I try a smile. "You're just my personal assistant."

She rolls her eyes. "Uh-huh. When have you ever been able to function without me?"

I clear my throat. "Been doing pretty well these last couple weeks, actually. Some of the best I've been in my entire life."

She opens her mouth to say something but can't get the words out. For once, _I_ have the upper hand, and I enjoy it in silence for a solid minute.

"We're going to a Quest Diagnostics near my apartment," I finally explain.

Her face screws up. "Bloodwork?"

"Yeah, they need to check my hormone levels." I pause. "You remember that we've gone on multiple death-defying quests and missions in which we fought literal gods, right? And you're freaking out about _bloodwork?"_

"Give me a pack of hellhounds over a needle any day," she grumbles.

* * *

An hour later, we're on the sidewalk in Midtown, and I have a bandaid on the inside of my arm. "Horrifying," Annabeth shivers.

"We can walk to the Duane Reade now," I say, feeling shaky. Dr. Keeler had said the request would be ready within the hour. "Need to grab a few things."

When we get there, I grab a bottle of water first (which Annabeth insists on paying for) before heading to the pharmacy. "Here to pick up?" the pharmacist asks, looking stressed and distracted (which, I don't blame her, she works at a Duane Reade in Midtown).

"Yeah! Prescription for Jackson."

She looks at me blankly. "There's more than a few Jacksons in our database."

Annabeth snickers behind me as I fumble through my cheap pleather purse for my wallet. I finally slide her my driver's license, my face red. "That's me, I promise," I add lamely.

"Perseus?"

The sound of that turns my stomach even worse than it used to. Practically no one calls me that anymore, which makes it even worse on the rare occasion that I _do_ hear it. "Is there a way for you to put it in a preferred name? Or, like, an alias, or something?"

"Our system requires legal name," she explains. "Apologies. So, sixty two-milligram tablets of estradiol and sixty hundred-milligram tablets of spironolactone?"

I feel Annabeth's hand on my shoulder. When I turn to look at her, she's giving me a confident smile. I try and give her one back.

"That's it," I say. "I, uh, have my insurance card."

After she does a bunch of complicated insurance stuff and I fork over my sixty-dollar copay, she gives me a paper bag. I feel light-headed as we head back out into the cool spring air.

* * *

Once we're back in the car, I open up the little white bag. With a deep breath, I pull out the two bottles. I hold them in my right hand, try to avoid noticing that _Perseus _is printed on the label. "Can I see?" Annabeth asks in a voice just above a whisper.

She opens one bottle and pulls out two waxy white pills, maybe two centimeters long. "What's this?"

"Spironolactone," I say, the word nearly catching in my throat. "Melissa says it's an anti-androgen. I don't really understand what _that_ means, but I know it's supposed to block testosterone."

"Okay," she says, stretching the word out. She carefully places them back in, like they're a pair of bombs. She examines the next bottle, shaking it like a rattle. "I'm guessing I know what these do."

Somehow, this is the most anxious I've been all day. I can hardly breathe while she shakes a few chalky blue pills onto her hand. "They're _so _small," she says, her voice delicate. "Like, seriously. _Tiny_. Smaller than birth control."

"Yeah," I say. "That's, uh. Estradiol. Self-explanatory."

She puts them back and hands the bottles back to me. "Do you want to do the honors?"

While she watches me closely, I take one spironolactone and two estradiol pills, place them in the palm of my hand. "Just one of the big ones?"

"Uh, no, I need to take two a day. Just not both at once. Gotta wait for the second one."

She hands me my bottle of water, and I try to calm my shaking hand. I glance at Annabeth and hesitate. "I've got your back," she says. "We've _all _got your back."

Deep breath. _Down the hatch_. Before I know it, they're gone.

I know what I'm gonna say next is stupid, but, in my defense, I'm a demigod who's used to gods that are capable of turning a mortal into a chicken at the snap of a finger. "I don't feel any different," I say under my breath.

Annabeth bursts out in laughter. "It's mortal medicine, Zoe. Not some god's magic blessing."

My heart pounds. That's the second time she's ever called me _Zoe_. "I like the way it sounds when you say that," I say, the words falling from my mouth without a thought.

"Do you?"

She laces her fingers through mine, and if possible, my heart pounds louder. I forget that she has this effect on me, and it feels so good that my toes curl up on reflex.

"You're really brave for doing this," she says, smiling at me. "I'm proud of you."

"I don't _feel _brave," I say. "I feel like I'm doing something I have to."

"Bravery isn't just fighting monsters, Seaweed Brain," she replies, rolling her eyes. "I'm sorry I couldn't do it properly when you came out to me, but I _wanted _to tell you that I was proud. I'm sorry I . . ." She shakes her head. "I'm sorry if what I said to you made you run away. But _please_, never do that again. You won't always stumble into a friendly demigod if you do."

I squeeze her hand. "I don't plan on it. And, umm. I understand why you said what you did. It must've been _a lot _to hear all at once."

"Yeah, but . . ."

Part of me wants to tell her about the Hunters, about Willow, but the words won't come out. We sit in silence for a while, long enough that I lose track of time. I close my eyes and try to plan out what I'm going to say next.

"Do you miss who I used to be?" I finally manage to ask.

She purses her lips and runs her thumb along the back of my hand. "I don't know. Maybe, at first, when you told me . . . it felt like I had lost someone. Like someone I thought I knew really well had suddenly gone away, probably permanently. It felt like . . . it almost like when we thought you were dead after Mount Saint Helens."

"Oh," I reply, my voice small.

"I don't think of it like that anymore," she says, eyes twinkling. "Maybe that's how I processed it at first, but no. Nobody _died_. It's like . . . you're more _you _now. This is the ideal version of you, the _you_-est you. I'm glad I get to see it."

Tears were welling in my eyes and I forced myself to breathe so I wouldn't sob. "Annabeth," I say, choking on her name, "you know what hormone therapy means, right?"

"I did some reading," she says. "I know this means you could never have kids."

"Unless I seek out a sperm bank within the next, like, two weeks? Yeah, biological kids can't happen. Is that . . . ?"

She shrugs. "I mean, the sperm bank thing is up to you, it's your body. But I certainly wasn't planning on having any in the near future. Too much to do, between college and fighting monsters and everything else."

"But you could always change your mind."

"There's always adoption," she suggests.

"You're straight, Annabeth!" I'm grasping at straws now, but there's no way it can be this easy, _no _way. "You deserve . . . uh. Someone who can, uh. You know. _Perform _for you. And the hormones would make that difficult."

She shakes her head. "You _assumed _I'm straight, first of all."

I stare blankly at her.

"Oh, come on, Seaweed Brain. Did you ever even _ask _if I was into women?"

I blink and realize, _no, _I never asked her. "I just . . . I've never seen you checking out a girl, or anything like that."

"Yeah? I had no idea you _were _a girl until about three months ago!"

I almost laugh. "Yeah, that's . . . a good point."

She nods, rolling her eyes. "So here we are. I'm pansexual. It is _not _a big deal. Now you know."

"Oh," I say, eloquent as ever. "That's, uh. Wow."

"And I'm guessing you're into girls too?"

I blush. "Really?"

"Well, c'mon! I _assumed _you were only into girls, but, Styx, I never asked you, did I? Given the circumstances, I'm not assuming anything about you anymore. So: do girls still do it for you or what?"

I redden. "Yeah, that didn't, uh. That didn't change."

"Good. Glad to hear it."

My heart begins to pound, and I'm sweating a bit. "Why's that?"

"Well, about that _performing _thing you mentioned . . ." She places her hand on my thigh. "I did some research. There's _l__ots _of options, even with the changes that are gonna happen. And I don't mean, like, surgery, or anything, just with what the hormones will do. Obviously, we'll both have to adjust, but I don't think we have anything to worry about in that department."

A noise I didn't know I was capable of making escapes my throat: "_hanh_," like I'm a Canadian goose. _Real cute, Zoe_. _Very feminine. She's gonna love that._

"You're adorable when you're flustered," she says, giving me a mischievous smirk. "I missed that."

I'm too tongue-tied to say anything.

She grabs my shoulder and brings me close to her, and our faces are just inches away now. She brushes her hand against my cheek, looks me in the eyes. "You are _amazing_," she says, eyes twinkling. "You told me a few months that I fell in love with . . . the person you used to be, and you were wrong. I couldn't get the words out, but gods, you were _so _wrong. I care about _you. _I fell in love with _you_. _You _are who I want, Zoe Jackson. Do you still want me?"

I nod, just a little bit. I'm lightheaded. She smells like lemon soap. "Yeah, that would, uh. That would be—"

She shuts me up by crushing me in a kiss.

* * *

**Finally, these two have successfully communicated! I hope this last scene didn't come across as overly fluffy, but this is always where I intended Annabeth and Zoe to end up. Is it overly optimistic? Probably! Gender transitions are pretty notorious for completely destroying relationships ("Fuckmylife666" by Against Me! is a great song about that), but c'mon, these two have literally been to Tartarus and back with each other. I have faith that they could make this work.**

**Anyways! Just one more chapter to go. Stay tuned for that. Review if you want! See you soon.**


	7. VII: True Trans Soul Rebel

_**VII: True Trans Soul Rebel**_

Three weeks later, I'm glaring at myself in my apartment's mirror. Annabeth is trying to make me feel better

"You look great," she says. "First hot day of the year! This is gonna be fun."

"The hotter it is, the less I can hide my nightmare body with layers of clothes," I grumble. I dab at my lipstick again, hoping that if I did that enough I might magically transform into a dolphin, or maybe a flock of seagulls.

"I happen to be a pretty big fan of your nightmare body, princess," she says, hand on the small of my back. My heart pounds, both from the touch and at the sound of _princess_. That's one of the new things that she calls me. Even though I insist that I hate it, she knows that's a lie.

"Is that supposed to make me feel better?"

"Of course! Speaking of your body, are you, erm, still sore?"

My left eye twitches and my hands automatically go the spots on my chest that have been causing me pain for a week. "Yeah. I don't think that's going away soon."

I toss my napkin away, submitting to my fate. It's a freakishly hot eighty degrees in mid-April, so I can only conclude that the gods are directly messing with me. The denim shorts Annabeth picked out are shorter than anything I've worn in my life, and my body is _not _ready for them yet. I feel a bit better about the blue top I'm wearing, which Annabeth insisted would go well with my eyes.

"My whole body sucks," I complain. "I look like a painting from that one Spanish guy, the guy who painted a bunch of rectangles."

She blinks. "Do you mean Picasso?"

"Yeah, him. I look like one of his idiot rectangle people."

I've come a long way in the past two months, but the gender dysphoria has stayed pretty intense. Melissa and I talked about it a lot, and she assured me that it was normal. _It's called 'transitioning' because it's a process_, she said. _You need to be in it for the long haul._ Obviously, three weeks of hormones weren't going to solve all my problems. So far, the hormones have only made my nipples sore.

Annabeth rolls her eyes. "You're _not _an idiot rectangle person. You're not rectangular at all!"

"You're so good at making me feel better."

When Annabeth convinced me to go to the April reunion of the Seven, she told me they wanted to hold it in New York for a change. I know they're doing it to welcome me back to the fold and make me feel comfortable, but I _really _don't want to be the center of attention. Given how different things are now, I know it's inevitable.

And I _do _look different. Mom took me to get my ears pierced last week, and Annabeth had helped me figure out how to paint my nails, which were currently black (Thalia would be so proud). Combine that with the (extremely subtle, thankfully) teal highlights in my hair and I really do look like a different person. I'm worried they're going to treat me like either a stranger or a circus attraction.

The daughter of Athena seemingly reads my mind. "It'll be _fine_. I'll run interference if you need me to."

"Promise?" I ask her, pouting a bit.

She rolls her eyes and gives me a quick kiss. I've only recently discovered pouting, but it _usually_ ends in her exasperatedly kissing me. "C'mon, let's get moving."

On the way out the door, Mom stops us. "Heading out?" she asks.

I nod, trying to smile for her. "We might stay over there, might not. We'll see how it goes."

"Okay," she says, looking nervous. Ever since I got back, she's seemed convinced that I'll up-and-leave again.

"It's alright, Ms. Jackson. I'll keep her safe."

"She'd be lost without you, Annabeth, so you better keep an eye on her."

Mom kisses me on the cheek, which makes Annabeth giggle. "You look amazing, honey," she says.

I shift my weight. Like I said, I'm still trying to figure out this whole _compliments _thing. "Thanks, Mom. Love you."

* * *

"How did Tristan end up with a loft in Park Slope, anyway?"

Annabeth shrugs as I ring the bell. "He's rich and famous? I guess if you're rich and famous, you have a loft in Park Slope. That way your daughter can throw parties in it with her demigod friends."

Piper opens the door and smiles wide. "I'm so glad you came!" she cries, crushing me in a hug.

I blink the tears out of my eyes (it's only been three weeks, so my therapist would say it's too early for the crying to be estrogen-induced, but I'm still blaming the hormones). "I'm happy to see you too."

_"_Look at you! You're practically _glowing!_"

"What am I, chopped liver?" Annabeth asks jokingly.

Piper rolls her eyes and hugs her too. "Oh, shut up."

We head in through the door, and I immediately freeze up when I see at least eight people in the den. That's more than I bargained for. I share a glance with Annabeth, who rolls her eyes. "You and I _literally_ went to hell and back, and you're nervous about seeing your friends?" Her hand finds mine and she kisses me on the cheek. "Come on. It's _fine_."

I nervously inch into the loft, and everyone looks at me. I set a straight face and put one foot in front of the other, keeping my eyes on the floor.

"Hey, guys," Annabeth says. "Hope we're not late."

Eyes are on me. I do a quick mental inventory of who's here: I see the rest of the Seven, plus Nico, Will, Reyna, and . . .

"Zoe Jackson, if you ever disappear on us like that again, I am strangling you," Thalia says. She's wearing a ratty band t-shirt, probably looking about as casual as the lieutenant of Artemis can.

"Seconded," Nico says, shaking his head. "You know how long I waited around for you in Rosario Beach?"

Jason is the next to admonish me. "Don't ever do that again, seriously."

I hold up my hands in surrender. "I'm sorry! This is my official apology. I don't plan on vanishing again."

The eyes are still on me. I'm about to say more when Piper clears her throat, interrupting. "Anyway! We're all here now. Glad we're a full crew again."

"Agreed," Hazel says, smiling. "That's all that matters."

* * *

After we ease into the swing of things, it all feels a bit more normal. I naturally hang on the edges of the party, and right now, I'm enjoying chips in the separate kitchen. I peer through the doorway; Annabeth, Piper, and Hazel are bunched up together, talking and laughing on the loveseat. _The girls of the _Argo II, which, after I think about it for a second, is a group that includes _me_. I'm about to head over when Reyna and Frank suddenly join me.

There's a joke I could write about this, something about two Roman military officers and a trans daughter of Poseidon walking into a bar. I'll workshop it.

"Zoe Jackson," Reyna says, stiffly, like words still don't really add up to her.

I try to smile. "Praetor."

"You're different," she says bluntly.

I glance at Frank, who shrugs in response. His look says: _It's Reyna, what do you expect?_

"I guess I am, yeah."

She nods. "This must not have been easy for you."

"Not particularly."

"You're doing well, I hope? Things have been improving?"

"I'm better than I've been in a long time."

Reyna gives me a small smile. "Good to hear. I admire your strength. Now, Piper said that she stocked up on pineapple soda, if you'll excuse me."

As the daughter of Bellona drifts off towards the fridge, Frank and I have an awkward moment. Something I'm still trying to figure out is handshake etiquette; am I supposed to shake men's hands now? Should I, like, curtsy, or something? Should I offer up my hand to Frank and have him kiss it like I'm some sort of medieval princess greeting a suitor?

We settle on a hug. "I miss you," Frank says.

"You too, buddy."

"I should've noticed you were distant, but . . ." He shakes his head, his eyes going to Reyna, hunched over the fridge.

"Praetor business?"

Frank nods. Annabeth told me a few weeks ago that I've gotten more serious since I came out, which, I don't know if I agree with her, but I _know _Frank has gotten more serious. Over a year now as praetor of the Twelfth Legion will probably do that. "Still, that's no excuse for being a bad friend."

"You _weren't _a bad friend. I was hiding. There's nothing more you could've done. And I'm okay now, so it doesn't matter."

Reyna withdraws from the fridge, handing Frank a guava soda. Were they co-praetors for long enough that they could telepathically communicate their soda preferences to each other? "Annabeth tells me you'll be joining her in New Rome in the fall for university."

Since we struck up our relationship again, she's finally convinced me to give college a shot. I was still undecided on my major and not exactly looking _forward _to classes, but I'll take any excuse to live near her again. I shift my weight and nod. "That's the plan, yeah."

"We wanted to extend our official invitation," Reyna says. "And our protection."

"You'll be in the city as an honored guest of the Twelfth Legion," Frank explains. "In addition to that, you know, you _are _a former member of the legion. A praetor, even!."

I run my hand along my _SPQR _tattoo. "I was praetor for maybe two entire hours."

"Still, I doubt you'll get any . . . I don't know. Trouble? When you arrive? On account of your new situation? On the off-chance you do, though, it'll be a serious insult to the Legion, so—"

"Call on us if anyone gives you grief," Reyna deadpans. "We'll set them straight."

I smile. "Thanks, guys."

"That includes me," comes the voice of Hazel, who enters the kitchen now. _Surrounded by Romans. _"I wanted to have a chat with Zoe, you guys, if that's okay?"

Frank kisses her on the cheek and smiles. "Sure thing."

Once the praetors are gone and the daughter of Pluto has a mandarin orange soda in hand (I'm learning so much about my friends' tastes tonight), Hazel turns to me. "I'm really proud of you."

I blush a little. _She _was supposed to be the pseudo-little sister in this relationship, not me. "Thanks."

"I'm glad . . ." She waves her hands, trying to find the words. "I'm glad you're still here with us. I wanted to update you on what I've figured out with the Mist."

I nod, mouth feeling dry.

"I wish I had better news," she says, looking pained. "I really tried to figure out a solution that would be more permanent."

"The Mist would only work temporarily?" I guess. "There's no workaround?"

She presses her lips together and nods. "I tried Mist-ing myself to look like Nico, just to see how it would go—"

"Gods, I'm sure he was _thrilled _about that!"

"—and I could maintain it for short bursts, maybe an hour at a time, before I started feeling weak. If _you _became a master manipulator of the Mist all of a sudden—"

"No chance of that happening."

"Well, still, if you _did_, you might not even be able to maintain it on yourself." She shakes her head, looking dejected. "I'm sorry, I really tried."

"It's completely fine," I assure her. "I don't know if I'd do it, even if I had the chance."

Magic's useful, but I decided about a month ago that I wouldn't seek out a magical "solution" for myself. I did a lot of reading about hormones (well, I watched lots of YouTube videos, but still), and I was comfortable with them. It wouldn't be perfect, obviously. I couldn't do anything about my shoulders or my height, both of which bothered me, but Annabeth assured me that she loved my _entire _body, so I decided to trust her judgment.

Hazel nods, now smiling ear-to-ear. "You look great, so I hoped not."

* * *

Jason is the next to corner me, and honestly, I haven't been looking forward to it.

"Hey," I try and say casually, but he's clearly not here to chat.

"Piper was a _wreck_ when you disappeared. She assumed the worst. _I _assumed the worst." He shakes his head, glaring at me. "After the way we lost Leo? Your vanishing act was awful."

"I already said it won't happen again!"

"Better not." He takes a step back and looks me over. "You're intact," he points out.

"As far as I know, yeah."

"And, you know. Everything's good? With everything? Like, you and Annabeth, you're still . . . ?"

I clear my throat. "Yeah, uh. So far, it's all good."

"So, like. I'm sorry, I don't know much about this stuff. Does this make you a lesbian?"

I shrug. "Uh. I try not to get bogged down in the terminology of it."

Jason looks sheepish and his cheeks redden. "Sorry if I, uh. I didn't mean to ask a weird question, I just—"

"No, it's—"

My voice catches in my throat when I find myself looking at him. He's embarrassed, so that little scar over his lip quivers a bit. His big blue eyes are sad, clearly empathetic, and I could see why Piper liked him. He had all these distinguished Roman features, but underneath them, he was pretty cute. Right now he looks like a puppy who got caught doing something he wasn't supposed to.

I blink. Wait, _w__hat_?

"Hey, uh, Zoe, are you okay? Do I have something on my face? You were staring."

I shake my head, trying to snap out of whatever weird brain thing is going on. _Hormones_, I reason. "I'm fine! Just, uh. Gonna go see Annabeth real quick."

I find her sitting next to Piper (of _course_) and she laughs when she sees me approach. "You look like you saw a ghost," she says.

"I'm fine." I robotically sit next to her and grab her hand, which feels just as good as it always has. "Just. Uh. Mmmhmm."

She gives me a sideways look. "You okay?"

"Feel free to step outside if you're overwhelmed," Piper offers, giving me that _daughter of Aphrodite _warm smile.

I tap my foot on the ground, feeling fluttery. This is _so _stupid. In the last year, I've been able to admit to myself that I'm a girl, which, you know, wasn't easy, but still, I get there in the end. And here I am, feeling like I'm going to explode.

"Seriously, princess, you look like you're gonna have a panic attack or something," Annabeth says, looking concerned.

_I just looked at Jason, of all people, and thought he was cute, _is what I would say if I was being honest. This is uncharted territory for me. Never before in my life have I ever thought: _Hey, that's a cute boy_. Maybe I _am _going to have a panic attack.

"Nothing! It's nothing." I say, trying to smile.

Gods, was it easier for me to accept that I'm _not _a man than it is to accept that I might be capable of being _attracted _to men? That's _so _stupid. That's the dumbest thing in the world. I hate my brain.

Annabeth looks at me with a skeptical expression. "Well, okay."

* * *

"You and Annabeth need to join us for a couple's dinner," Will Solace suggests.

It's midnight, and, without going into the details or implicating myself in a crime . . . bottles have been mysteriously disappearing from Tristan McLean's liquor cabinet. Will sits upside-down on the couch; his feet dangle in the air where his head should be, and he smiles up at me from feet-level. "Nico really needs to have more fun."

I nod sloppily. "I _do _owe him a few favors!"

Nico wanders over to us, tapping his foot, looking stern. Again, without implicating _any _of us in possible crimes: Nico had not aided in removing or emptying Tristan's bottles. Despite being the youngest people here, he and Hazel were monitoring us, making sure things didn't get too wild. "We talking about how Jackson owes me?"

"We're gonna go out to dinner!" I tell him. I have a long sip of my drink, which, it's just Coke, I promise. "Me and my girlfriend. You and your boyfriend. I'll buy you, like, a bunch of drinks. And that'll be the favor! I wonder if New Rome has any gay clubs."

"I'm guessing _no_," Nico says stiffly. "I'm sixteen, so I'd be too young to get in anyway."

"But we'll be right across the bay from San Francisco!" I point out.

"We could all get fake IDs!" Will suggests.

"You're both drunk," Nico says, rolling his eyes.

I shake my head. "Be cool and gay and hang out with us, Nico! Niiiiiicoooooo!"

"Niiiiiicoooooo!" Will echoes, laughing.

"_Niiiiiicoooooo_!" wails a drunk Jason Grace, who's currently laid out on another couch (thankfully barely conscious, given how flustered he'd made me), being tended to by his sister.

The son of Hades glares at us. "This sucks," he grumbles. "I'm gonna go make sure Frank is okay. Last I saw him, he was hunched over the toilet."

"Agreed with di Angelo on this," says Thalia. "You guys need to take it easy."

"We're fine!" I insist. "Just because you're all silvery and immortal doesn't mean you can't have a good time!"

"_Someone _in this apartment needs to be alert. There are _five children _of the Big Three here! What if we get attacked?"

Just then, I hear a knock at the door. "Gods, I _forgot _we ordered pizza!" Will says, giggling.

I race to my feet, taking a second to answer to gather my bearings. "I'll do the pizza thing," I declare, feeling generally wobbly. "I'll get the pizza!"

I open the door of Piper's condo and take a few seconds to process exactly _who's _delivering our food. His face is square, his jaw covered in a black beard. I know his warm green eyes instantly, even if he's wearing a t-shirt that says _Big Paulie's Pizzeria _instead of his usual Hawaiian apparel.

"Zoe," Poseidon says warmly. "I was hoping we could talk."

I blink. "You work at the pizza place?"

"I . . . merely commandeered this pizza," he says slowly. "I compensated the mortals for it, don't worry."

I dimly take the box from him, unsure of what exactly to say. Thankfully, Poseidon appears willing to take the reins on this one. "I've been watching you intently these past few months," he says. "I wanted to see how you were doing."

I redden a bit. I've had some embarrassing moments lately. I _sincerely _hope he didn't see me the day I spent in Missoula, which, the less said about that, the better. "You have?"

"Naturally. Unfortunately, it's rare that one of my half-blood children reaches adulthood. I wanted to see if you were on the right course."

If I was sober, I never said this to him. The rum in my belly gives me confidence. "I've kinda had to figure out what the _right course _is. I'm guessing where I've ended up isn't what you prefer."

His eyebrows shoot up. "Why would you say that?"

"I'm all trans-y these days." The words are flowing out of me now, freely. _Thanks, rum._ "I've felt less of a connection to the ocean. I kinda figured you were over me. Plus, you know, you're my _dad_, and the trans-y thing I mentioned before, and I didn't know if—"

He holds up his hand. "You think I'm hung up on that? On something as mortal and impermanent as _gender_? Please. I've existed for thousands of years, and so have people like you. I've had several _children _like you. Dozens of my legacies, too. As for why you're less connected to the ocean: it's hard to say for sure why that's the case, but no, it isn't because I'm _over you_. It may have been because you were depressed, but it's not for me to speculate. Besides, that isn't why I'm checking up on you."

"Oh," I say. Conversation _over_, I guess, in that department. I'm pretty grateful for it.

"I wanted to know if your mother was still keeping well."

I squint at him. Did he come all this way to ask about my _mom_? "She's fine. She had a baby. I'm sure you noticed that while you were spying on me."

"_Spying _on me is a harsh word for godly omniscience," he grumbles. "But, yes, I _did _notice that. I wanted to make sure she was in good health. The man I met, Paul, does he still treat her well?"

I can't believe _this _is the conversation we're having. I suddenly feel more like a child of divorce than I ever have, like I'm the medium Poseidon goes through to spy on his ex. "He does."

He nods, satisfied. "Good."

"You could just see her for yourself," I point out.

"I wouldn't want to intrude on her life now that she's met another man she loves," he says, shaking his head. "Now, uh. I don't want to keep you from your party any longer. Enjoy your pizza, Zoe."

I can barely mutter a _goodbye _before he's gone. Typical. Poseidon: good for a five-minute conversation once every year or so. I'm left standing at the door, holding a rapidly cooling pizza, feeling soberer than I'd like.

* * *

"Nico," I say, slurring my words, "would you ever kiss a _giiiirl_?"

He briefly looks strained before giving a shrug of his shoulders. "I don't know."

"Wha' 'bout you, _Reeeee_yna?"

The daughter of Bellona squints at me. Playing truth or dare with her was scary; she'd wanted to summon Argentum and Aurum to judge whether or not people were telling the truth. Everyone else said _no_. "You don't get to ask two questions in a row, Jackson. That means it's _your _turn. Truth or dare?"

"Truth!"

"Would you ever kiss a _boy_?"

"Nah," I say, shaking my head. I'm pretty sure that's right. "Frank, wha' 'bout you?"

The son of Apollo stiffens and glances at Hazel when I ask him that. "No."

"I might," Jason mutters from his makeshift bed on the couch.

Nico's eyebrows practically fly off his head, like, _are you kidding me? _If Piper wasn't already asleep, I'm guessing she'd react similarly. I just try not to look at him, because I get tingly with embarrassment when I do.

"Jason . . . you're just messing around, right?" Nico asks him, looking more confused than annoyed.

He replies by belching and rolling over.

"Okay. Uhh . . . Hazel, truth or dare?" Will asks the daughter of Pluto.

She shrugs. "Dare."

"_Oooh_! I dare you to—"

"Zoe, I could hear you from the kitchen!" Annabeth says, storming into the living room. She's had a few drinks but she's mostly coherent. "Come on, you're eating bread and drinking water. Enough of this!"

"Ann'beth," I mutter, "I'm _fine_!"

She glares at me with those scary eyes I've come to love and fear. "You're clearly drunk."

"Nooooo! I'm _tipsy!_"

"She's extremely drunk," Reyna says, rolling her eyes.

I glare at her. "_Reeeeey_na! Come on!"

Annabeth sighs. "Sorry, Rey. Hey, princess, I'm gonna lay you down somewhere comfortable, okay?"

"You called her _Rey_," I point out. "I've never heard _anyone _call her _Reeeeeey!"_

My girlfriend reddens and gives Reyna another apologetic look. "Come on. On your feet."

While she leads me away from the living room and towards a bedroom, I start giggling. "You called her _Rey_."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"You have a crush on _Reeeeey-__naaaa_! I thought I was the _only girl _you liked but now there's _Reeeeey_."

She looks like she might kill me as she sets me down on the bed. "I do _not_ have a crush on Reyna, and if you won't stop saying it—"

"Iss _fine _if you have a crush on _Reeeeey-__naaaa_," I say, smiling at her. "I won' tell _anyone! _Aww, you're _blushing_!"

"I am _not _having this conversation with you right now," she says through gritted teeth. "I'm bringing you some bread and some water."

"Iss okay!" I say, grabbing her hand. "I looked at Jase-y earlier and I thought he was _cute_! Iss _fine_."

Her eyebrows jump in surprise. "Oh, really? That's _interesting _information."

"Don' tell _anyone _though. And I won' tell _anyone _about _Reeeeeey__—_"

"Not one more word," she warns.

"_Reeeeey_na and _Aaaaann'_beth sittin' in a tree, K-I-S-S—"

She throws her hands up in frustration and cries "You're impossible!" before leaving me to finish the rest of the song on my own.

* * *

"This is the part where you admit you were acting stupidly and you apologize."

I frown. Thalia and I were sitting out on the balcony, the sun beginning to peek over Prospect Park. I'm sober now (mostly), and Thalia's dragged me outside to have this conversation. A talk I'd been dreading.

"I never would've run away if you hadn't banished me from your camp," I reply through gritted teeth. "I need you to understand how hopeless I felt when you did that."

"For that, I'm sorry. I just couldn't let you do it, Jackson. I knew you'd regret it."

"The Blessing of Artemis," I say wistfully.

"I understand," she says. "I, uh. Willow's been asking me about you. What did you two even talk about?"

My heart pounds when I think about her. "Nothing," I reply. "Just . . . tell her I said thank you, but I can't do it. Tell her that she can have her jacket back if she wants it."

If I thought I could do it, I'd convince her to leave the Hunt, have her resume her mortal life. I wish I could talk to her more, explain to her why I made my decision, tell her that she could have a life outside of the Hunt in the modern world if she wanted it. It wouldn't be easy for her, but I was managing.

But I knew she was _Willow, the best damn tracker in the Hunters_. She loved that life. It was all she knew.

"She gave you a jacket?" Thalia asks, looking at me sideways.

"It's a long story. Just tell her that she can have it back if she wants."

The glass to the balcony slides open, and Annabeth steps out into the humid air. "What're you two talking about?" she asks, looking exhausted. _Long night_. So long it was about to be day again.

Thalia and I share a look as my girlfriend flops down into a chair. I never told Annabeth that I had been considering the Hunt; I didn't need her to know she almost lost me. "Not much."

"Everyone else is successfully sleeping," the daughter of Athena says, looking red-eyed. "Jason's done puking. I swear, the sounds he made . . ." She shudders. "It was like he was possessed by an _eidolon_."

I flinch. "I'd prefer if we didn't mention _eidolons _ever again."

She gives me a look, like, _is there something else about Jason that you'd like to never mention again? _I glare at her. The last thing I need is her teasing me about this.

"Poor kid," Thalia says. "He really needs to learn his limits."

"I'm sure tonight made him learn his lesson," Annabeth says. "He'll take it easy next time."

It feels good to sit here peacefully, to be worried about problems as mundane as _under__age drinking. _I feel like a normal eighteen-year-old girl, if only for a moment.

Annabeth holds my hand and grins at me. "How was the party for you?"

"Amazing." Even though I'd managed to embarrass myself a few times, I really meant it. It felt natural to be with everyone again. Sure, I still need to visit Camp Half-Blood, but this feels like a good start. "I feel right. This is how it's supposed to be."

She kisses me on the lips, giggling. "I'm so glad to hear you say that."

Thalia makes a face. "You two better get a room."

We watch Apollo's sun chariot rise over Brooklyn in comfortable silence.

* * *

**Wooooo! That's all, folks! Nothing too heavy in this chapter, just a nice bow on Zoe's progress to this point. Tormenting her with the whole Jason thing was lots of fun.**

**If you're one of the people who followed and read along with every update: thank you. I deeply appreciate it. I didn't expect this story to garner much attention here, given its subject matter, but I've been pleased with its reception.**

**If you're trans/questioning/otherwise LGBTQ in a different way: I hope this meant something to you. I'm a trans woman and Zoe's circumstances are basically completely different from mine (other than just the fact that she's a demigod lol), so don't feel alienated/left out if you don't see yourself in her either. Everyone's journey is different.**

**There's so much other weird trans demigodly stuff I wanted to do with this story! Like, I had this concept that monsters become attracted to half-bloods around age thirteen because of puberty, and therefore Zoe undergoing hormone replacement therapy would be, like, mortally dangerous, since it would attract monsters. I originally wanted a plotpoint early on to be that Zoe's ability to manipulate water was suffering as a direct result of her dysphoria, which, I _still _think that's an interesting idea. If you're a writer and you plan of writing a trans character at some point: consider these things! I'd love to see those ideas explored.**

**LASTLY: While I didn't really intend on writing any more fanfiction in the near future (I'm writing my thesis in the fall so I need to focus on that), I, while editing this chapter, came up with some more studd I might like to write at some point. While I initially didn't intend on writing beyond this point, a few fun scenes from Annabeth's point of view of the upcoming summer at Camp Half-Blood have taken root in my brain and refuse to leave. Very fluffy, very ZoexAnnabeth, very sweet.**

**SO: _there may be an epilogue to this thing at some point_. If that sounds like something you're interested in reading, I would recommend following this story, because I have no idea when/if I'm going to write it. It might be a couple of weeks from now, it might be a year from now, it might never happen. **

**Anyway! This is the end. Have a nice day, and be good to yourself.**

**XOX**


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